Double-rowed teeth: design specialization of the H. venator ants for enhanced tribological stability

The ant H. venator can engage in various labors using a pair of elongated mandibles with the ability
to rotate about two orthogonal axes. This biaxial rotation enables the ant to gently handle their
small, fragile eggs with enhanced contact area and smaller work space. However, how this biaxial
rotation influences the ant ’s predation ability and how the ant responds to this influence remain
elusive. We quantitatively investigate the tribological performance of the ant ’s mandibles during
interactions with prey by taking morphology and kinematics into consideration. We find that each ant
mandible features unique, double-rows of dorsal teeth (DT) and ventral teeth (VT), which are
employed to firmly clamp prey over a wide range of sizes by biting their different body parts,
demonstrating the ant ’s predation ability. We hypothesize the mechanism underlying such an ability
may rely on the two, non-parallel rows of teeth which potentially eliminate effects of biaxial
rotation. T...

Source: Bioinspiration and Biomimetics - July 25, 2021 Category: Science Authors: Wei Zhang, Zhigang Wu, Zixin Wang, Zhe Wang, Chuchu Li, Hamed Rajabi and Jianing Wu Source Type: research