海角大神

A tiny marine creature built with hundreds of eyes hidden in it's armored shell could become the inspiration for futuristic building materials.

Chitons, a type of sea mollusk, are related to聽slugs, octopuses, and mussels. Their tough shells are composed of overlapping plates that can defend against lurking predators. But what looks like聽minuscule聽dots covering the shell are actually hundreds of eyes made of the same armor-like material, a聽crystalline聽mineral known as聽aragonite.聽Scientists have known about chiton's armored eyes for decades but have only recently begun to understand the extent of their capability.

A group of scientists from Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge discovered that each microscopic eye has it's own complex structure, including photoreceptive cells that can sense approaching predators. The researchers now know chitons can see an eight-inch-long fish from six and a half feet away, according to Live Science. The fact that these aragonite structures are able to both defend and provide vision,聽intrigues聽scientists interested in creating multifunctional building materials.

鈥淭o date, artificial materials that have the ability to perform multiple and often structurally opposite functions are not available. We can not yet rationally design them but studying different multifunctional biomaterials present in nature should ultimately allow us to deduct the key principles for this relatively new area of materials science,鈥� said Joanna Aizenberg, Harvard professor of materials science, in a press release.

Researchers have long looked to mollusks and their sturdy shells for inspiration when it comes to constructing innovative, artificial, building materials. As Live Science reported:

But, as The Atlantic reported, the dual role of these eyes do come with limitations:

Researchers seemed pleasantly surprised by this primitive creature鈥檚 complexity and capability: Sonke Johnsen, who was one of the scientist鈥檚 graduate advisers, told The Atlantic, 鈥淭hey're forming decent images in an animal that, to be really blunt, is not that smart.鈥�