Spines, spikes,\u00a0stingers,\u00a0teeth, claws, beaks, fangs, tusks:\u00a0Nature\u2019s prickly bits come in\u00a0a\u00a0wide variety, but they all\u00a0reflect\u00a0the same\u00a0trade-off.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
These\u00a0spiky sundries\u00a0strike a balance between\u00a0durability and puncturing\u00a0prowess, researchers report in the July 8\u00a0Science Advances<\/em>. But nature\u00a0hasn\u2019t\u00a0settled on one winning shape.\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00a0team\u00a0measured the shape of 143 biological\u00a0puncture tools, from formidable elephant tusks to tiny, shudder-inducing\u00a0tools like the reproductive organs\u00a0male\u00a0bedbugs\u00a0use\u00a0to\u00a0pierce\u00a0females\u00a0when mating. \u201cYou don\u2019t need horror movies if you study puncture biology,\u201d says evolutionary\u00a0biomechanist\u00a0Philip Anderson of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.\u00a0<\/p>\n Anderson and colleagues sampled a wide variety of spikes from the animal and plant kingdoms. The list\u00a0includes lesser-known implements, such as\u00a0the \u201clove darts\u201d that\u00a0hermaphroditic snails lance their mates with\u00a0and the\u00a0needlelike\u00a0ovipositors that parasitic wasps use to\u00a0lay eggs inside other critters.\u00a0<\/p>\n