Locally-curved geometry generates bending cracks in the African elephant skin.
Locally-curved geometry generates bending cracks in the African elephant skin.
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DOI:
10.1038/s41467-018-06257-3
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发表时间:
2018-10-02
影响因子:
16.6
通讯作者:
Milinkovitch MC
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Martins AF;Bennett NC;Clavel S;Groenewald H;Hensman S;Hoby S;Joris A;Manger PR;Milinkovitch MC
An intricate network of crevices adorns the skin surface of the African bush elephant, Loxodonta africana. These micrometre-wide channels enhance the effectiveness of thermal regulation (by water retention) as well as protection against parasites and intense solar radiation (by mud adherence). While the adaptive value of these structures is well established, their morphological characterisation and generative mechanism are unknown. Using microscopy, computed tomography and a custom physics-based lattice model, we show that African elephant skin channels are fractures of the animal brittle and desquamation-deficient skin outermost layer. We suggest that the progressive thickening of the hyperkeratinised stratum corneum causes its fracture due to local bending mechanical stress in the troughs of a lattice of skin millimetric elevations. The African elephant skin channels are therefore generated by thickening of a brittle material on a locally-curved substrate rather than by a canonical tensile cracking process caused by frustrated shrinkage. The skin of the African bush elephant features micrometer-wide channels whose function is water and mud retention for thermal regulation and protection from parasites. Here authors use microscopy and modelling to show that the channels are fractures of the animal thick and brittle skin outermost layer.
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影响因子:
4.6
作者:
Green, Jeremy B. A.;Sharpe, James
通讯作者:
Sharpe, James
影响因子:
2.9
作者:
SEUNG, HS;NELSON, DR
通讯作者:
NELSON, DR
影响因子:
8.6
作者:
KANTOR, Y;NELSON, DR
通讯作者:
NELSON, DR
影响因子:
8.6
作者:
Leung, K;Néda, Z
通讯作者:
Néda, Z
DOI:
10.1139/x09-098
发表时间:
2009-10-01
期刊:
CANADIAN JOURNAL OF FOREST RESEARCH-REVUE CANADIENNE DE RECHERCHE FORESTIERE
影响因子:
--
作者:
MacFarlane, David W.;Luo, Aidong
通讯作者:
Luo, Aidong