Are the "gerbils" that drink water with their ears in "Dune 2" real?

The cute "Jerboa" that appeared in the recent hit movie "Dune" has long and thin hind legs and can jump far away with a long and thin tail. The cutest thing is that it has a pair of big ears, which can not only detect the slightest movement, but also condense water inside the ears, which can be drunk by grabbing with two small paws.

Muad'Dib, the "desert rat" in Dune (Source: The movie Dune)

What is the prototype of "Jerboa"?

The design inspiration for Muad'Dib, the "desert rat" on the planet Arrakis in the movie, actually comes from the long-eared jerboa (Euchoreutes naso) in the real world .

This is a small rodent known for its ability to adapt to arid environments, mainly found in deserts and dry areas. Their name comes from the way they hop and their long legs, which make them move more like kangaroos than traditional mice .

Schematic diagram of long-eared jerboa (Source: generated by the author using AI)

Can long-eared jerboas really collect water with their ears? Of course not. In the real world, long-eared jerboas rarely need to drink water directly. They can get almost all the necessary water from their food.

This ability comes from their extremely efficient kidneys, which minimize water loss through urine. At the same time, their metabolism is specially adapted to drought, producing very concentrated urine and very dry feces, which further reduces water loss.

Long-eared jerboas are mainly active at night, which helps them avoid the extreme heat during the day and reduces water evaporation. Nocturnal activity also allows them to take advantage of slightly cooler temperatures to find food. They collect food such as seeds and store it in their burrows. Not only does this provide them with a steady source of food in extreme conditions, it also reduces exposure to high temperatures while foraging.

Long-eared jerboas have a strong ability to adapt to drought (Source: Wikipedia)

These cute little animals are particularly common in desert areas, and their ability to adapt to extreme drought made them the inspiration for the design of this fictional creature in Dune.

Beetles actively collect water in the desert?

In the real world, since the long-eared jerboa's big ears cannot collect water, are there any creatures that can actively collect water?

It’s true!

In one of the driest regions in the world, the Namib Desert in southern Africa, where only 1.4 centimeters of rain fall each year, one beetle, the Namib Desert beetle, has demonstrated a unique adaptation for harvesting water.

Namib Desert Beetle (Source: Reference 1)

The Namib beetle has a very clever survival strategy: it climbs up the sand dunes, faces the breeze, keeps its body at a 45-degree angle, and uses its hard elytra to capture water droplets in the air. The elytra have a special structure on their surface that can effectively collect water. Is this so amazing? Here we need to talk about the principle of collecting water based on the special structure of its body surface .

The beetle's head is pointed in the wind direction, and the uneven surface of its elytra helps capture water droplets in the mist. Tiny water droplets in the mist, about 15 to 20 microns in diameter, condense on its wings. These water droplets first adhere to the hydrophilic protrusions, which are surrounded by hydrophobic grooves.

When the water droplets come into contact with the hydrophilic surface, they spread out to form larger droplets, which are less likely to be blown away by the wind and can absorb more water droplets. Under the influence of winds of 30 kilometers per hour, the droplets will grow to a diameter of 5 mm and slide down the beetle's back to the mouth for the beetle to ingest.

Schematic diagram of the change of small water droplets on the back of the Namib Desert Beetle over time (Source: Reference 3)

This unique method of water collection allows the Namib Desert Beetle to survive in environments with little visible water. Scientists have also taken inspiration from the beetle's water collection mechanism to develop new water-harvesting technologies that can collect atmospheric moisture in arid regions for human and agricultural water needs.

Bionic applications of water harvesting

Scientists have taken inspiration from the water-collecting mechanism on the back of the Namib Desert beetle to design a variety of materials and technologies that can mimic this natural phenomenon.

Donghua University researchers first proposed a hydrophilic-superhydrophobic patterned fabric made by simple textile equipment and a simple weaving method. This fabric uses hydrophilic viscose and hydrophobic polypropylene yarn with some reagents to produce a mixed wettable surface, which not only greatly reduces the cost, but also provides the possibility for large-scale production of water-collecting materials in the future.

Schematic diagram of preparing hydrophilic-superhydrophobic patterned weft-back woven fabric (Source: Reference 4)

Inspired by the water collection mechanism of the Namib Desert beetle, Australian engineer Edward Linacre developed a self-powered irrigation pump system called "Airdrop". This system introduces air through an underground pipe network and cools it to a temperature where water condenses, and then delivers the water to the roots of plants, aiming to irrigate crops in arid areas.

NBD Nano, an American startup, is researching how to mimic the functions of a beetle onto the surface of a water bottle to create a self-filling water bottle. The prototype bottle is believed to be able to collect 0.5 to 3 liters of water per hour, depending on the local environment.

Designers Arturo Vittori and Andrea Vogler created Warka Water, a 9-meter-tall bamboo tower with an internal plastic grid that collects moisture from humid air at night and stores it in a tank at the base. The design could provide a low-cost source of water to arid regions.

The water droplets will slide down the beetle's back to the mouth (Source: Reference 1)

By mimicking the water collection strategies of organisms such as the Namib Desert Beetle, scientists and engineers are providing innovative and sustainable solutions for arid regions. This not only advances the scientific development of water resource management, but also opens up new paths for future environmental protection and sustainable development.

We look forward to these nature-inspired technologies being further developed to bring tangible changes to water-stressed regions around the world.

References

[1]Parker, Andrew R., and Chris R. Lawrence. "Water capture by a desert beetle." Nature 414.6859 (2001): 33-34.[2]Frederick, Eva. "Could this desert beetle help humans harvest water from thin air?." Science 27 (2019).

[3]Chen, Zhen, and Zengzhi Zhang. "Recent progress in beetle-inspired superhydrophilic-superhydrophobic micropatterned water-collection materials." Water Science and Technology 82.2 (2020): 207-226.

[4]Liu, Qibao, Xiaoyan Li, and Zaisheng Cai. "Facile fabrication of asymmetric wettable fabric with weft backed weave for oil/water separation." RSC advances 6.111 (2016): 109769-109777.

[5]Gao, Yue, et al. "Textile-inspired methodology toward asymmetric fabric based on weft-backed weave for oil/water separation." Journal of materials science 53.6 (2018): 4683-4692.

Planning and production

Author: Denovo Team Science Team

Reviewer: Huang Chengming, Researcher at the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Planning丨Ding Zong

Editor: Ding Zong

Proofread by Xu Lailinlin