Soiled adhesive pads shear clean by slipping: a robust self-cleaning mechanism in climbing beetles.

ABSTRACT: Animals using adhesive pads to climb smooth surfaces face the problem of keeping their pads clean and functional. Here, a self-cleaning mechanism is proposed whereby soiled feet would slip on the surface due to a lack of adhesion but shed particles in return. Our study offers an in situ quantification of self-cleaning performance in fibrillar adhesives, using the dock beetle as a model organism. After beetles soiled their pads by stepping into patches of spherical beads, we found that their gait was significantly affected. Specifically, soiled pads slipped 10 times further than clean pads, with more particles deposited for longer slips. Like previous studies, we found that particle size affected cleaning performance. Large (45 μm) beads were removed most effectively, followed by medium (10

SUBMITTER: Amador GJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5493796 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature