Sea Urchins Discovered to Get Their Strength From Famous Geometric Voronoi Pattern

Researchers recently reported that components of the skeletons of common sea urchins or Paracentrotus lividus follow a similar pattern to that seen in dragonfly wings and honeycombs.

Examining this recurring natural order could inspire the development of strong yet lightweight new materials, a ScienceNews report specified.

According to Valentina Perricone, a marine biologist and biomimetic consultant, an incredible diversity of structures at the microscale, ranging from totally ordered to fully chaotic.

Such structures may help the animals keep their shape when faced with predator attacks and environmental stresses.

Following the Voronoi Pattern

While a scanning electron microscope was used to investigate urchin skeleton tubercules, areas where the spines are attaching what withstand strong mechanical forces, Perricone detected "a curious regularity."

Tubercules appear to follow a type of common natural order known as the Voronoi pattern, which she, together with her colleagues discovered.

Using mathematics, a Voronoi pattern is produced by a process that splits a region into polygon-shaped cells built around points within them known as "seeds."

Essentially, the cells are following the closest neighbor rule. Each spot inside a cell is closer to that seed of the cell, compared to any other seed. More so, the boundary that's separating a pair of cells is equidistant from both their seeds.

A computer-generated Voronoi pattern had an 82-percent match with the pattern detected in sea urchin skeletons.

The researchers suspected that such an arrangement yields a strong yet lightweight skeletal construction.

Evolutionary Solution Optimizing Skeleton

The pattern can be interpreted as an evolutionary solution optimizing the skeleton, explained Perricone, from the University of Campania "Luigi Vanvitelli" in Aversa, Italy.

As specified in the study published in the journal, Journal of the Royal Society Interface, urchins, bees, and dragonflies are not the only beneficiaries of Voronoi architecture.

Commenting on the study, Perricone explained, that they are developing a library of bioinspired, "Voronoi-based structures" that could serve as resistant, lightweight solutions for materials design.

The expert also said, these, she's hoping, could inspire new developments in materials science, architecture, construction, and aerospace.

Sea Urchins

Animals.NET describes the sea urchins as "spiky little creatures" that are incredibly common all over the world. These animals are slow-moving creatures, typically discovered in the internal zones of rocky shorelines.

Sea urchins have several surprising traits to help keep them alive. Essentially, the simplest way of describing a sea urchin of any species is the so-called "ball of spines." Most species are similar to a pincushion filled to the brim that has needles.

These creatures exist in an array of shapes, sizes, and colors. Some species have incredibly thin, long spines. Others, on the other hand, have short thick nubs.

When it comes to interaction with humans, sea urchins do so in numerous ways. Humans, for their part, have used sea urchins as a food source, and the part of sea urchins eaten is usually the gonads.

Related information about sea urchins is shown on Deep Look's YouTube video below:

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