A team of scientists detailed a sea mollusk that has eyes built into its shell to help it detect potential predators.
Published in the journal Science, the new study details how the mollusk called Acanthopleura granulate has to sacrifice strength in its shell in order to be able to see a fish approach from about six-and-a-half feet away.
Study co-author Ling Li, a postdoctoral researcher at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, told Live Science the research could help with designing self-monitoring armor for combat vehicles.
"We think this system might provide design lessons for us to learn how nature is able to produce material structures with multiple different functions," Li said.
Known as a chiton, or a marine pill bug, A. granulate has eyes made up of a mineral commonly found in mollusks called aragonite rather than protein, like a human's eyes. Though the eye is the same material as the shell, the shell is weaker where the eyes are. To make up for these weak spots in the armor, the researchers learned A. granulate can grow up to 1,000 eyes in their lifetime.
"In many instances, materials represent a compromise between conflicting properties, and materials development is often targeted at finding the best possible compromise," Peter Fratzl, a professor of biomaterials at the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces in Potsdam, Germany, told MIT News. "In this paper, the MIT-Harvard collaboration shows that chitons, a variety of mollusks that lives on rocks, has a visual system fully integrated in its armor. It is really astonishing to see how minerals can be used at the same time to focus light and to provide mechanical protection."
