Mystery behind the strongest creature in the world

IOP

10 March 2008

The Hercules Beetle

The strongest creature in the world, the Hercules Beetle, has a colour-changing trick that scientists have long sought to understand.  Research published today, Tuesday, 11 March, in the New Journal of Physics, details an investigation into the structure of the specie’s peculiar protective shell which could aid design of ‘intelligent materials’.

The Hercules Beetle is remarkable, not only for its strength, able to carry up to 850 times its own weight, the protective outgrowth of the insects’ exoskeleton, aka its shell, also changes from green to black as its surrounding atmosphere gets more humid. 

Researchers from the University of Namur in Belgium have used the latest imaging techniques to study the shell of the beetle - a scanning electronic microscope to determine the structure responsible for the colour and a spectrophotometer to analyze how the light interacts with this structure.

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