adhere to water
61. Expanding barbules hold water.
Most birds develop multiple strategies to avoid saturation of their feathers. The sandgrouse is a notable exception; sandgrouse feathers are adapted to hold water. These birds live mostly in dry sandy deserts and scrubland. When breeding, the bird...
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62. Wiry tangles capture fog: lichens
"The Namib close to the coast does, however, have one source of moisture that most deserts lack. Almost every day, a fog rolls in from the sea, billowing across the dunes. On slopes where little else can survive, a lichen grows in a great orange c...
63. Reducing surface tension to travel on water: rove beetle
"A small beetle, Stenus, normally walks slowly on the surface. When speed is desired, through, it secretes a substance from its last abdominal segment that locally reduces the surface tension. The result is an asymmetrical force on the beetle, whi...
64. Body changes stiffness: sea cucumber
"Catch connective tissues or mutable collagenous tissues of echinoderms can extensively change their mechanical properties such as elasticity and viscosity within a few minutes under the regulation of their nervous system. The tissues contain a la...
65. Behavior adapts to threats: chestnut-sided oropendola
"One of the most complex examples of brood parasitism features the giant cowbird (Scaphidura oryzivora). These natives of Central and South America generally parasitize other birds in the same family, the icterids. They particularly favor the huge...
66. Hooks adhere to wooly coats: burdock
"Calyx globular, formed of numerous narrow scales, each tipped with a little incurved hook, by means of which the whole calyx, when laden with ripe seed, easily separating from its stalk, adheres to the hairy or wooly coats of animals, who can sca...
67. Leaves retain air films underwater: water fern
"A novel mechanism for long-term air retention under water is found in the sophisticated surface design of the water fern Salvinia. Its floating leaves are evenly covered with complex hydrophobic hairs retaining a layer of air when submerged...
68. Peptide defensin fights pathogens: animals
“In addition to their bacterial membrane permeabilizing capacity, defensins have been shown to neutralize bacterial invasion by directly binding to bacterial toxins….Similar properties have been described for retrocyclins, a class of ...
69. Leaves capture water: bromeliads
"So successful are these techniques for sending seeds up into the canopy that the massive branches of many forest trees are often densely lined with squatters. These are known as epiphytes and among the commonest are bromeliads. They anchor the...
70. Plants minimize water loss: desert
"The vegetation of arid ecosystems displays scale-free, self-organized spatial patterns. Monitoring of such patterns could provide warning signals of the occurrence of sudden shifts towards desert conditions…Scanlon et al. 4 (page 209) and ...
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