Adhesives on tentacles!! Found them

[Graeme]

Right, I found the abstract to a paper regarding nautilus adhesive pads(which I couldne get the whole thing), but that's OK, as the abstract was more than enough! had the basic description there. Now, TONMO Tony (lol, sorry ) did say that he was going to put my diss up in hte articles page (damn proud of that!) but I thought it be nice to put the paper in regarding nautilus tentacles.


STRUCTURE OF THE ADHESIVE SURFACE OF THE DIGITAL TENTACLES OF NAUTILUS-POMPILIUS

MUNTZ WRA, WENTWORTH SL

JOURNAL OF THE MARINE BIOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 75 (3): 747-750 AUG 1995


Abstract: The cirri of the digital tentacles of Nautilus pompilius are covered by annular ridges, more pronounced on the oral (adhesive) than the aboral side. On the oral side the epithelium is thicker on the proximal and outer surfaces of the ridges than on their distal surfaces. Prominent electron-dense granules occur in the cells of the thick epithelium, but are absent from the thin epithelium and the epithelium of the aboral surface. These granules contain mucopolysaccharide and may be responsible for adhesion.


I'd love to get a hold of this paper, seems interesting. At the moment nothing more than a diversion, but an interesting one at least!

Graeme

[monty]

If you're into weird chemical adhesion in animals, read up on gecko feet, too. Van der Waal's forces! a random google result on this (there are better references out there).

[Graeme]

Yeah, if I remember, Van der Waal forces are where reduced pressure inside an object causes adhesion! That's how ceph suckers work. Geckos have tiny ridges in their feet eh? I rememebr in Rhodes I woke up to find a gecko on my trainer. So I was looking at this thing, giggling like a school kid, when it ran into my trainer... which wasn't any good, so I had to try and shake the blighter out... poor little bugger.

Graeme

[monty]

Yeah, if I remember, Van der Waal forces are where reduced pressure inside an object causes adhesion! That's how ceph suckers work. Geckos have tiny ridges in their feet eh? I rememebr in Rhodes I woke up to find a gecko on my trainer. So I was looking at this thing, giggling like a school kid, when it ran into my trainer... which wasn't any good, so I had to try and shake the blighter out... poor little bugger.

Graeme

Actually, the geckos use tiny hairs to create the force. Van der Waal's forces are actually more of an electric/chemical force, so much more at the atomic level than the suckers, which are really mechanical vacuum generators, primarily, as you know better than I do...

Wikipedia's Van der Waal's force entry is not all that great, but gives something of an overview. The particularly weird thing is that this sort of force is not the normal chemical band type of action, it's more of a force that comes up when two substances get near each other and just have a minor rearrangement without permanently changing their chemistry.

[Graeme]

Aha! Thanks Monty. I'm always a bit dubious about Wikipedia since anyone can add. Even so, it is checked probably every day by experts, so usually any discrepencies will be erased quick enough.

Graeme