When the going gets rough - studying the effect of surface roughness on the adhesive abilities of tree frogs.

ABSTRACT: Tree frogs need to adhere to surfaces of various roughnesses in their natural habitats; these include bark, leaves and rocks. Rough surfaces can alter the effectiveness of their toe pads, due to factors such as a change of real contact area and abrasion of the pad epithelium. Here, we tested the effect of surface roughness on the attachment abilities of the tree frog Litoria caerulea. This was done by testing shear and adhesive forces on artificial surfaces with controlled roughness, both on single toe pads and whole animal scales. It was shown that frogs can stick 2-3 times better on small scale roughnesses (3-6 µm asperities), producing higher adhesive and frictional forces, but relatively poorly on the larger scale roughnesses tested (58.5-562.5 µm asperities). Our experiments su

SUBMITTER: Crawford N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5238669 | biostudies-literature | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature