Chameleon tongues contain a long bone wrapped in a tubular muscle, called the accelerator muscle. When the reptile spots its prey, it contracts this muscle, pulling it back like the string of a bow. Then, suddenly, the chameleon releases its tongue, which shoots forward at over 8,500 ft/sec, expanding up to 2.5 times its original length to grab an unsuspecting insect.
It is the tongue’s stored elastic energy that makes this high-speed capture possible, and many scientists have attempted to mimic the movement. At Purdue Univ., researchers created a soft robot inspired by the chameleon tongue, and also developed a soft gripper, both of which exploit the power of elastic energy...
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