Seahorses are unique fish that live in water and breath through there gills. Seahorse is Hippocampus in Latin: hippos meaning "horse" and kampos meaning "sea monster." What makes these fish different from other marine creatures is that they have a neck and a snout that points down; they also have a prehensile tail that allows them to grip onto eel grass and other weeds. But seahorses aren't just adorable; these creatures may be small, but they're tougher than they look.

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According to Los Angeles Times, scientists have been studying this animal's square-shaped tail, and they discovered that it can withstand certain attacks than a smooth, round tail would be. Their findings, described in the journal Science, could somehow help scientists build more flexible and durable robots in the future.

Their prehensile tail, which seahorses use for grasping, is made of about 36 squarish segments with a boxy cross section rather than a cylindrical form, which is attached to the animal's vertebrate via thick layers of connective tissue, decreasing in size along the length of the tail.

Michael Porter, mechanical engineer in Clemson University said, "Almost all animal tails have circular or oval cross-sections, but not the seahorse's.We wondered why."

He went on to say, "We found that the square-shaped tails are better when both grasping and armor are needed."

Porter, whose research group is in the business of designing new structures based on biological templates, has long been fascinated by the seahorse tail's unique geometry. He discovered the bones are composed of only 40 percent minerals, plus a surprisingly large amount of protein and other organic compounds.

When Porter subjected the tail to load tests, he discovered that the connective tissue between the bony plates and tail muscles took on most of the pressure, leaving the vertebrae unharmed, Gizmodo has learned.

Because of seahorses' unusual skeletal structure, researchers have been eyeing on them as inspiration to designing robots that are strong yet also flexible enough to carry out tasks in the real world.

Ross Hatton, study co-author and an assistant professor in the College of Engineering at Oregon State University, said, "Human engineers tend to build things that are stiff so they can be controlled easily, but nature makes things just strong enough not to break, and then flexible enough to do a wide range of tasks.That's why we can learn a lot from animals that will inspire the next generation of robotics." 

According to Live Science, the researchers made a simple 3D model of the seahorse's tail, then tested it through several punishing tests. The found thatwhen the tail is being twisted, the square plates stopped the tail from crushing. Compressing the tail was difficult because the seahorse has joints just at the spots where a typical solid structure would cave in making the tail resistant against water birds, the seahorse's main predator.

Hatton said, "It's a good opportunity, outside the simulations,to physically demonstrate how the tail works.

TagsSeahorse, Robots, Science