Water-repellent legs of water striders
Abstract
Water striders (Gerris remigis) have remarkable non-wetting legs that enable them to stand effortlessly and move quickly on water, a feature believed to be due to a surface-tension effect caused by secreted wax. We show here, however, that it is the special hierarchical structure of the legs, which are covered by large numbers of oriented tiny hairs (microsetae) with fine nanogrooves, that is more important in inducing this water resistance.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Super-hydrophobic polymer surfaces with water contact angles above 150°, low surface energy, and self-cleaning properties resist microbial cell adhesion in short-term applications.
“Super-hydrophobic polymer surfaces, such as very smooth silicone, polyurethane, polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE), poly(vinyl chloride) (PVC), and polyethylene (PE), that have water contact angles larger than 150°, low surface energy,55,56 as well as unique water repellent57 and self-cleaning abilities,56 are known to have resistance to microbial cell adhesion during short-term applications.58”
From Recent advances in thromboresistant and antimicrobial polymers for biomedical applications: just say yes to nitric oxide (NO) (2016) · cites this paper as [57]
Cites
Wettability of porous surfaces
Cassie, A. B. D., & Baxter, S. (1944) · Transactions of the Faraday Society · doi:10.1039/tf9444000546 · Cited by 13,807 · see citing works
Super‐Hydrophobic Surfaces: From Natural to Artificial
Feng, L., Li, S., Li, Y., Li, H., Zhang, L., Zhai, J., Song, Y., Liu, B., Jiang, L., & Zhu, D. (2002) · Advanced Materials · doi:10.1002/adma.200290020 · Cited by 4,437 · see citing works
Self-citationThe hydrodynamics of water strider locomotion
Hu, D. L., Chan, B., & Bush, J. W. M. (2003) · Nature · doi:10.1038/nature01793 · Cited by 772 · see citing works
Super‐Water‐Repellent Al 2 O 3 Coating Films with High Transparency
Tadanaga, K., Katata, N., & Minami, T. (1997) · Journal of the American Ceramic Society · doi:10.1111/j.1151-2916.1997.tb02943.x · Cited by 301 · see citing works
The Wetting of Insect Cuticles by Water
Holdgate, M. W. (1955) · Journal of Experimental Biology · doi:10.1242/jeb.32.3.591 · Cited by 112 · see citing works
Dickinson, M. H. (2003) · Nature · doi:10.1038/424621a · Cited by 111 · see citing works
Surface Film Locomotion by the Water Strider, Gerris remigis Say
Caponigro, M. A., & Eriksen, C. H. (1976) · The American Midland Naturalist · doi:10.2307/2424392 · Cited by 47 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Mesoporous carbon materials: Synthesis and modification
Liang, C., Li, Z., & Dai, S. (2008) · Angewandte Chemie International Edition · doi:10.1002/anie.200702046 · Cited by 1,935 · see citing works
Nature-inspired superwettability systems
Liu, M., Wang, S., & Jiang, L. (2017) · Nature Reviews Materials · doi:10.1038/natrevmats.2017.36 · Cited by 1,726 · see citing works
Self-citationBioinspired Surfaces with Superwettability: New Insight on Theory, Design, and Applications
Wang, S., Liu, K., Yao, X., & Jiang, L. (2015) · Chemical Reviews · doi:10.1021/cr400083y · Cited by 1,646 · see citing works
Self-citationWo, Y., Brisbois, E. J., Bartlett, R. H., & Meyerhoff, M. E. (2016) · Biomaterials Science · doi:10.1039/c6bm00271d · Cited by 251 · see citing works
Droplet and bubble wetting behaviors: The roles of surface wettability and roughness
Xiao, Y., Zheng, J., He, Y., & Wang, L. (2022) · Colloids and Surfaces A: Physicochemical and Engineering Aspects · doi:10.1016/j.colsurfa.2022.130008 · Cited by 90 · see citing works
Ye, W., Shi, Q., Hou, J., Jin, J., Fan, Q., Wong, S.-C., Xu, X., & Yin, J. (2014) · J. Mater. Chem. B · doi:10.1039/c4tb01126k · Cited by 35 · see citing works
- Authors
- Gao, X., & Jiang, L.
- Affiliations
- Institute of Chemistry (CN)
- National Center for Nanoscience and Technology (CN)
- Corresponding author
- Jiang, Lei
- Venue
- Nature
- Published
- 2004-11-03
- Volume
- 432
- Issue
- 7013
- Pages
- 36-36
- ISSN
- 0028-0836 (ISSN-L)
- 1476-4687
- OpenAlex
- W2056316433
- Cited by
- 2,609
- References
- 7
- Citations by year
- 2026: 63 · 2025: 97 · 2024: 110 · 2023: 132 · 2022: 138 · 2021: 122 · 2020: 162 · 2019: 152 · 2018: 154 · 2017: 143 · 2016: 149 · 2015: 141 · 2014: 171 · 2013: 153 · 2012: 171
- FWCI
- 21.57
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Nature (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Materials Science › Surfaces, Coatings and Films › Surface Modification and Superhydrophobicity
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Mechanics of Materials › Adhesion, Friction, and Surface Interactions
- Physical Sciences › Engineering › Computational Mechanics › Fluid Dynamics and Heat Transfer
- Keywords
- water striders, water repellency, non-wetting surfaces, hierarchical surface structures, microsetae, nanogrooves, surface tension, wettability, insect legs
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Extremities, Quartz, Surface Tension, Water, Wettability, Heteroptera, Hydrophobic and Hydrophilic Interactions
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
