Secret in the slime

Engineers base new propulsion method on water snails.

US engineers are looking to water snails and how they use slime to distort water surfaces as a new method of propulsion.

Project leader, Eric Lauga, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the Jacobs School of Engineering, at the University of California, San Diego, has found that the reason for this propulsion is in the slime.

Water snails can distort soft surfaces, such as the free surface of a pond, by applying forces, which are exploited to generate a propulsive force so they can move. Some freshwater or marine snails can ‘hang’ onto the water surface while releasing a trail of mucus. Its foot wrinkles into the rippling waves while producing matching waves in its secretion between its foot and the air.

This generates a pressure that pushes the foot along.

Lauga and his team demonstrate that water snails have to distort the surface in order to move. “If they don't, they won't go anywhere,” said Lauga, who explained that these water snails naturally rise up due to their low weight, and therefore do not have to work to remain near the surface.

The team believe that this finding could leads to a new method of propulsion. In fact, a colleague at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is already using the adhesive/lubricating propulsive method for land snails to drive a robotic device.

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