Mantis Shrimp: Weapon to Armor

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Last post, we covered the incredibly tough and highly impact resistant mother of pearl which keeps most mollusks safe from predators. But the mantis shrimp can break through these extremely hard structures with the speed of a .22 caliber bullet.

Artificial Mother of Pearl: Stronger Lighter Armor

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One of nature's strongest materials is nacure, colloquially known as "Mother of pearl." This is the surface coating of pearls and the iridescent coating that lines the inside of many mollusks such as oysters, abalone, and mussels. Nacure is composed of 95% aragonite, a hard but brittle calcium carbonate mineral, with the remaining 5% made up of soft organic molecules. While on their own, each material has poor mechanical properties, when layered together by the mollusks, the nacure can be (in energy terms) up to 3,000 times more resistant to fracture.