Remora fish suction pad attachment is enhanced by spinule friction

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

11-1-2015

Abstract

The remora fishes are capable of adhering to a wide variety of natural and artificial marine substrates using a dorsal suction pad. The pad is made of serial parallel pectinated lamellae, which are homologous to the dorsal fin elements of other fishes. Small tooth-like projections of mineralized tissue from the dorsal pad lamella, known as spinules, are thought to increase the remora's resistance to slippage and thereby enhance friction to maintain attachment to a moving host. In this work, the geometry of the spinules and host topology as determined by micro-computed tomography and confocal microscope data, respectively, are combined in a friction model to estimate the spinule contribution to shear resistance. Model results are validated with natural and artificially created spinules and compared with previous remora pull-off experiments. It was found that spinule geometry plays an essential role in friction enhancement, especially at short spatial wavelengths in the host surface, and that spinule tip geometry is not correlated with lamellar position. Furthermore, comparisons with pull-off experiments suggest that spinules are primarily responsible for friction enhancement on rough host topologies such as shark skin.

Identifier

84962840926 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Journal of Experimental Biology

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.123893

ISSN

00220949

PubMed ID

26417010

First Page

3551

Last Page

3558

Issue

22

Volume

218

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