Aquatic snail's teeth overtake spider silk as 'strongest biological material'

Sorry, spiders, but sea snails make strongest material on Earth as a new research suggests that the limpet aquatic snail has teeth stronger than any other material.

Researchers from the University of Portsmouth have found that the limpets have teeth with a crystalline structure so strong it should be copied to improve our cars, aircraft, boats and space craft, News.com.au reported.

Asa Barber said that until now they thought that spider silk was the strongest biological material because of its super-strength and potential applications in everything from bulletproof vests to computer electronics, but now they have discovered that limpet teeth exhibit a strength that is potentially higher.

The secret appears to be in a mineral substance known as goethite and this crystal forms in the limpet as it grows, enabling the conical-shelled critter to strip algae from rocks.

Barber noted that limpets need high strength teeth to rasp over rock surfaces and remove algae for feeding when the tide is in, adding that they discovered that the fibres of goethite are just the right size to make up a resilient composite structure.

He added that the whole tooth is slightly less than a millimetre long but is curved, so the strength is dependent on both the shape of the tooth and the material. Generally a big structure has lots of flaws and can break more easily than a smaller structure, which has fewer flaws and is stronger and the problem is that most structures have to be fairly big so they're weaker than humans would like.

He noted that limpet teeth break this rule as their strength is the same no matter what the size.

The study is published in the Royal Society journal Interface.