Tern in hunting mode. Photo by Ashala Tylor Images

While reading Thor Hanson’s engaging book, Feathers: The Evolution of a Natural Miracle, I came across a wonderful chapter that talked about biomimicry and flight. It explains how birds’ wings and feathers form a perfect airfoil. For example, each feather is controlled by its own muscles around the follicle. So a bird can continuously adjust its feathers in flight to account for variations in wind, temperature, thermals, etc. His description makes you realize how we can never exactly copy nature because of the complexities. But even if we can’t duplicate nature, we can emulate or mimic its forms, processes, and systems for our human designs.

Speaking of form, I loved the following quote from Hanson’s book, which came after relating the Greek myth of Daedalus. In this ancient story, Daedalus and his son, Icarus, built wings from feathers, wax, and twine. But Icarus flew too close to the sun and the wax melted, causing him to hurtle to earth. Hanson then points out one of the important things we encourage designers think about:

“In crafting his famous wings, Daedalus copied only the appearance of birds, ignoring the biological and physical processes that made their flight possible.”

That is, true biomimicry must go beyond form and also try to emulate process and system.