Over the course of their wildly successful proliferation across the earth, the insects as a taxon have evolved enviable adaptations to their diverse habitats, which include adhesives, locomotor systems, hydrophobic surfaces, and sensors and actuators that transduce mechanical, acoustic, optical, thermal, and chemical signals. Insect‐inspired designs currently appear in a range of contexts, including antireflective coatings, optical displays, and computing algorithms. However, as over one million distinct and highly specialized species of insects have colonized nearly all habitable regions on the planet, they still provide a largely untapped pool of unique problem‐solving strategies. With the intent of providing materials scientists and engineers with a muse for the next generation of bioinspired materials, here, a selection of some of the most spectacular adaptations that insects have evolved is assembled and organized by function. The insects presented display dazzling optical properties as a result of natural photonic crystals, precise hierarchical patterns that span length scales from nanometers to millimeters, and formidable defense mechanisms that deploy an arsenal of chemical weaponry. Successful mimicry of these adaptations may facilitate technological solutions to as wide a range of problems as they solve in the insects that originated them.

中文翻译：

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这不是虫子，而是特征：昆虫的功能材料

在它们在地球上广泛成功繁殖的过程中，昆虫作为一个分类单元已经进化出了令人羡慕的适应其不同栖息地的能力，其中包括粘合剂、运动系统、疏水表面以及传感器和执行器，这些传感器和执行器可以转换机械、声学、光学、热学、和化学信号。受昆虫启发的设计目前出现在一系列环境中，包括抗反射涂层、光学显示器和计算算法。然而，由于超过一百万种不同且高度特化的昆虫物种已经占领了地球上几乎所有的可居住区域，它们仍然提供了大量尚未开发的独特的解决问题策略。为了给材料科学家和工程师提供下一代仿生材料的灵感，这里精选了昆虫进化出的一些最壮观的适应能力，并按功能进行了组装和组织。由于天然光子晶体、长度范围从纳米到毫米的精确分层模式以及部署化学武器库的强大防御机制，这些昆虫展现出令人眼花缭乱的光学特性。对这些适应性的成功模仿可能会促进技术解决方案，以解决与起源于它们的昆虫一样广泛的问题。