adhere OR attach
91. Stem sends out climbing gear: cheese plant
"Almost every element of plant anatomy, it seems, can be turned into some kind of climbing device. The cheese plant climbs with its roots, sending them out from its nodes, the places on its stem from which leaves normally spring, and wrapping them...
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92. Capillary action aids adhesion: European blowfly
"A study of fly footprints shows that the offending insect relies mainly on capillary forces generated by fluid secreted from its feet. Mattias Langer et al. used atomic-force microscopy to examine the adhesiveness of tiny puddles of foot fluid le...
93. Special tongue captures soft prey: long-beaked echidna
"Zaglossus has a specialized groove on the distal third of the tongue that has three rows of sharp spines that assist in worm capture. In both Tachyglossus and Zaglossus prey are audibly ground between a keratinous pad at the base of the tough and...
94. Foot adhesion prevents capture: palm leaf beetle
"Hemisphaerota cyanea is a small blue beetle (Chrysomelidae; Cassidinae) found on palmetto plants in the southeastern United States. Anyone who has attempted to collect this insect knows that it is able to cling tenaciously to the fron...
95. Shelters constructed underwater: sandcastle worm
"The sandcastle worm Phragmatopoma californica, a marine polychaete, constructs a tube-like shelter by cementing together sand grains using a glue secreted from the building organ in its thorax. The glue is a mixture of post-translationally ...
96. Colonies bond together: Eastern oyster
"Coastal ecosystems rely upon oyster reefs to filter water, provide protection from storms, and build habitat for other species. From a chemistry perspective, few details are available to illustrate how these shellfish construct such extensi...
97. Employing frictional devices: tenebrionid beetles
A team of researchers led by Stanislav Gorb studied the frictional surfaces of the forewing-to-body locking mechanism in tenebrionid beetles. They observed that, in beetles, the system responsible for fixing forewings (elytra) to the body consists...
98. Joint shaped as suction cup prevents peeling: bull kelp
"Loads that might cause peeling occur widely in nature. Neither the holdfast of a large marine alga nor the byssal thread of an intertidal mussel nor the foot of the wave-challenged snail can be assured of tensile forces perpendicular to its attac...
99. Tendons and bones form seamless attachment: Chordates
"In addition, architects can learn from connections and transitions between systems and subsystems of biological entities. In the building sector, connections between parts and elements are almost always discontinuous and articulated as dividing s...
100. Eggs attached securely to hairs: body lice
"Eggs of body lice, commonly called 'nits', are attached to the body hairs of the host by a cement-like substance." (Wootton 1984:87)
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