Metals and their Functional Role in the Structures of Invertebrates

This book showcases the diverse strategies used by invertebrate organisms to enhance their structures with metals. Written by the leading scientists in this multidisciplinary field, this book explores a range of metal-enhanced structures that span the world of invertebrates, their wonderous uses, and their applications to human-engineered products. The articles, accompanied by artistic imagery, reveal how metals augment the cuticle of insect mouthparts, the tongue of snails, the slime of slugs, and the claws of crabs. Intended for evolutionary biologists, material scientists, and anybody with an interest in invertebrate biology, this book covers what we currently understand about the adaptive value of metals in structures and lays a foundation for future studies.

Chapter 1: Invertebrates are heavy metal: An overview of armor, weapons, and other cuticular adaptations of diverse lineages.- Chapter 2: The metal-enriched head cuticle of velvet ants (Mutillidae): a new special feature of the "indestructible insects".- Chapter 3: The presence and distribution of transition metals and other inorganic elements in the cuticle of cicadas (Hemiptera: Cicadidae).- Chapter 4: Sticky, tough, fast-setting glue: How metal ions make Arion subfuscus mucus into a potent defensive secretion.- Chapter 5: Element sensitive synchrotron-based X-ray tomography as a technique for studying transition metals in the cuticle of insects.- Chapter 6: Diversity of mineral systems, material compositions and mechanical properties in molluscan radulae.- Chapter 7: Formation and function of metal coordination cross-linking in Mytilus mussel byssus.- Chapter 8: Microwear analysis and functional morphology of claws of the Florida stone crab, Menippe mercenaria.

Matthew S. Lehnert is a Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Kent State University at Stark, North Canton, OH, USA. He has a PhD in Entomology from University of Florida and now conducts interdisciplinary research on the functional morphology of structures, particularly insect mouthparts and the metals in the cuticle of cicadas.