Grooves Gather Water

the thorny devil, a brown spiked reptile walks through a desert in western australia

Biological Strategy

Thorny devil

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Capture, Absorb, or Filter Liquids

The most common liquid used by living systems is water, which they require to survive. But there are many other liquids that provide nourishment, play a role in defense mechanisms, or serve other purposes. Water varies in its availability; it is sometimes plentiful and sometimes very scarce or only available as fog or mist. To minimize the energy required to capture, absorb, or filter liquids, living systems have strategies that take advantage of the unique properties of the given liquid. For example, water moves from a gaseous to liquid state when it encounters a surface colder than the air. Plants in forests that experience fog and clouds more than rain have strategies that condense liquid water from moist air.

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Reptiles

Class Reptilia (“creeping”): Lizards, crocodiles, turtles, snakes

Reptiles retain some of the key characteristics that first enabled vertebrates to live permanently on land. They have dry skin covered in scales made of keratin that help prevent water loss. (Amphibians still need to stick close to water to keep their skin moist.) Many reptiles reproduce by laying eggs that are watertight and have a yolk, so eggs can develop on land while staying moist and nourished. Reptiles are also ectotherms, meaning they don’t produce their own body heat. This means they burn through energy much more slowly than “warm blooded” creatures of the same size. It also means that they need to keep warm to keep active, which is why you might see them spending a seemingly inordinate amount of time simply basking in the sun.

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Grooves on spikes of thorny devil lizard provide drinking water by drawing condensed dew to mouth by capillary action.

The Thorny Devil (Moloch horridus) can gather all the water it needs directly from rain, standing water, or from soil moisture, against gravity without using energy or a pumping device. Water is conveyed to this desert lizard’s mouth by through a circulatory system on the surface of its skin, comprised of semi-enclosed channels 5-150 µm wide running between cutaneous scales. Channel surfaces are heavily convoluted, greatly increasing the effective surface area to which water can hydrogen-bond and hence capillary action force. Passive collection and distribution systems of naturally distilled water could help provide clean water supplies to the 1 billion people estimated to lack this vital resource, reduce the energy consumption required in collecting and transporting water by pump action (e.g., to the tops of buildings), and provide a variety of other inexpensive technological solutions such as managing heat through evaporative cooling systems, protecting structures from fire through on-demand water barriers, etc.

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Last Updated September 14, 2016

References

“The thorny devil, a tiny highly specialised lizard from the central Australian desert which lives entirely on ants has each scale enlarged and drawn out to a point in the centre. Few birds could relish such a thorny mouthful and to that extent, they must be a very effective defence, but the shape of the scales also serves another and most unusual function. Each is scored with very thin grooves radiating from the central peak. During cold nights, dew condenses on them and is drawn by capillary action along the grooves and eventually down to the tiny creature’s mouth.” (Attenborough 1979:164)

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