It draws its strength from hexagon-shaped scales and connections between them, University of California, SD engineers, have found. Lactoria cornuta “boxfish is small and yet it survives in the ocean where it is surrounded by bigger, aggressive fish, at a depth of 50 to 100 meters,” said Wen Yang,Swiss Federal Institute of Technology. “After I touched it, I realized why it can survive — it is so strong but at the same time so flexible.”
The hexagon-shaped scales are called scutes. They are connected by sutures, similar to the connections in a baby’s skull, which grow and fuse together as the baby grows. Most fish have overlapping scales = no weak points, should a bite from a predator land exactly in between scales...
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