Week 9: Additional and interesting information about darkling beetles

As discussed in previous posts, the meal-worms will grow into darkling beetles. Some of the meal-worms bred in this project had grown into darkling beetles. Below shows the update of the current progress of the meal-worms.

Picture 1

PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS

Darkling beetles are approximately 1.5 inches (3.8 cm) in length. They have chewing mouthparts and one pair of antennae. The antennae are often segmented into 11 parts and are thread-like, bead-like or slightly cubed. The darkling beetle does not have any major distinguishing characteristics. There are no bumps or outgrowths, as they are uniformly smooth and black; one end is easy to tell from the other. Wings of the darkling beetle are fused, rendering this beetle flightless. All these characteristics can be seen in Picture 1 above.

HOW DARKLING BEETLES DEFEND THEMSELVES?

Darkling beetles have a very interesting defense mechanism. If they were disturbed, they assume a head down and tail up position, and if handled roughly, they emit a dark-colored, foul-smelling fluid. This behavior is enough to discourage all but the most determined predators. The fluid washes off easily with water in case of contact with your hands. Coyotes, foxes, hawks, snakes, ravens, and crows often eat darkling beetles. The larger species have no other insect predator as adults.

This dark-colored, foul-smelling fluid seems to be a potential subject which can be investigated further to see if there's any area which the defensive mechanism can be applied on or being mimicked. The compositions of the fluid is not known at the moment, but the defense mechanism is surely quite interesting for a small insect like the darkling beetles, which is good enough to fend off most, but not all of its predators.

Sources:

[1] Woodland Park Zoo (2014). Darkling Beetle. Retrieved from

http://www.zoo.org/page.aspx?pid=1915#.U5VvOfmSySo

[2] Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (2014). What About Dakling Beetles? Retrieved from

http://science-ed.pnnl.gov/pals/resource/cards/darklingbeetles.stm

Week 8: What Can We Inspired from Breadworm?

Breadworm always shed its skin due to the high content of protein in the body. What can the engineer inspired from breadworm is to invent a type of protective coating on either automobile and household. 

What is the function of Coating?

A paint or coating is defined as liquid, liquefiable or mastic composition designed for application to a substrate as a think layer which is converted to an adherent film after application. Paints and coatings are used to protect, decorate or add functionality to an object or surface.

Acymax Technologies

What can be mimicked?

Engineer can mimic the ability of shedding skin by the breadworm on inventing a type of protective coating. This protective coating can be applied and reused easily. The materials used has to be bio-degradable.Furthermore, it can be engineered to provide functional properties needed to provide solution for a wide range of demanding application. For an example, most of the car owner will have to repaint the car after 5 years or have their car polished once in awhile in order to maintain the "shiny" look of their car. By inventing this protective layer, all the car owner has to do is to spray a layer of coating on their car with no maintenance require. After some period of time, scratches or any defect formed on the layer of coating due to the weather or other causes, the owner just have to remove the protective coating by peeling and re-apply a new layer on the car. The car will look brand new again. This protective coating will have the same abilities as mobile phone's screen protector.