Structural reorganizations in the hard-soft interface of armored skin of pufferfish

The armored skin of long-spine pufferfish contains a repetitive pattern of very thin interfaces of highly mineralized hard spines and highly stretchable soft skin.
Activating this armor as a defense mechanism exposes the interfaces to two extreme conditions: body inflation stretches the skin and induces tension strains to the interface; rigid spines receive intense stresses forming complex strains-stresses at the interfaces. In this project, we study the role of soft-hard interfaces in the spiny skin of porcupinefish in preventing mechanical failures under extreme conditions despite a drastic mechanical mismatch. Hence,
we aim to understand the architectural morphology of the skin-spine interfaces and their reorganizations, which opens possibilities for the next generation of load-bearing, stretchable biomaterials with encoded functions.