Insects first evolved about 480 million years ago, in the Ordovician Era. To put things into perspective, this was about 100 million years before the first trees hit the scene. Since then, the first common insect ancestor has given rise to over one million species of insects, making up 90% of all known species and 10 quintillion insects alive today, or about 1.4 billion insects for every person. Their diverse range is to be marveled at; seeing ants’ civilized colonies, praying mantises’ terrorizing prowess, or butterflies’ dazzling flight as they navigate the skies. Biomimicry is the process of studying these diverse adaptations of life to spark innovation. For many problems, engineers don’t have to start from scratch in their approach. Instead, they can consult someone (or something) who’s already got it figured out. 

Looking at extremophile bugs is helping humanity adapt to increasingly extreme weather. As threats of water scarcity grow, scientists have looked to methods to draw moisture out of the air. However, water’s interaction with materials is vastly complicated, depending heavily on the weather and chemistry of the material. Recently, scientists tackling this problem have been looking at the aptly named “fog harvester beetle.” Fog harvesters are native to the Namib desert stretching along the southwest African coast, which only receives ½ inches of rain, if any at all, per year. Life relies on an unpredictable fog, which appears only about once a month. Fog harvesters are specially adapted to collect fog on their shells, optimally textured with grooves and hydrophobic portions to trap moisture and guide the droplets toward their mouths. Researchers have recreated these patterns on fabrics to harvest water in the Atacama Desert. One of these hanging sheets of fabric can gather 220 gallons of water at once, making it one of the most promising technologies for tackling water scarcity.

Bug biomimicry also holds the potential for mitigating current environmental harms. Camel crickets, commonly thought of as household pests, may hold the secret to breaking down toxic pollutants. Black liquor, a byproduct of the paper pulp industry, is highly toxic to aquatic life when it finds its way into waterways, and burning the substance forms potent carcinogens. This has left very few options to mitigate black liquor’s environmental impact, and there has been limited progress in developing methods to break down the substance. Researchers began to look for bacteria with the potential to metabolize the pollutant, but progress was minimal. That was until researchers decided to examine the gut microbiota of insects, which have the ability to digest an extremely varied diet while defending themselves from pathogens. Researchers investigated cave (or basement) dwelling insects, like common camel crickets, because they were the most likely to be able to break down compounds similar to those found in black liquor. In screening camel crickets, researchers found 17 bacterial colonies that were able to break down lignin, black liquor’s main component, in a wide range of environments. Five of these colonies had the ability to feed solely on the pollutant, acting as breakthrough tools in reducing paper’s environmental impact. 

Within the overlap of engineering and biology, nature serves as a vast repository of innovation, offering designs refined through millions of years of evolution. These insect-inspired solutions provide insight into how modern-day problems may not need to be solved from scratch; the solution may have been crawling on the ground right in front of us, and now, it’s our job to find it.