8. Stenocara Beetle and Water Collection
You’ve probably never heard of the Stenocara Beetle, but its system of collecting water from fog could help us all have more drinking water in the future. The beetle lives in the Namibian desert where there is no water to be found. It survives because of the bumps on the back of it’s wings, these are like magnets for water. While the beetles shell is waxy like a Teflon drawing the water from the fog down to the bug’s mouth.
Using the bug as the model, researchers at MIT have developed water magnet bumps for building so that human beings can gather water from fog as well. Around the world there are more than 20 countries use water collection nets to wring water from the air so adding these beetle’s bumps would greatly increase the efficiency of collecting water in this way.
