Palaeo-bioinspiration: When fossils inspire the future
Palaeo-bioinspiration draws inspiration from fossil species to design solutions to modern environmental and societal challenges.
What is bioinspiration, and why extend it to palaeontology?
Palaeo-bioinspiration is a branch of bioinspiration. Bioinspiration involves drawing inspiration from the living world to develop new products, processes and systems, particularly for the purposes of sustainable development.
Bioinspiration draws its strength from the variety of life forms studied, and from our knowledge of the functions associated with their physical characteristics.
A dinosaur that became extinct 66 million years ago, the Pachycephalosaurus, had an extremely resistant skull that has been studied for the design of protective helmets.
© Dottedyeti - stock.adobe.comThe value of palaeontology and the fossil record
Rather than just studying present-day species, palaeo-bioinspiration opens up the domain to palaeontology, and more specifically to our understanding of extinct species, from their adaptations to their lifestyles.
Fossil species outnumber present-day species by a factor of 1,000, and some of them have adaptations and forms unknown amongst today's species. These are sources of inspiration that have yet to be explored in the context of bioinspiration, even though they represent 99.9% of species that have ever existed!
An eco-friendly approach
Reducing resource consumption and greenhouse gas emissions are key issues for modern society. Living organisms have much to teach us in this respect, through their systems for capturing and storing energy, redistributing water, using materials efficiently, building multifunctional structures and so on. This wide variety of energy- and resource-efficient systems could help humanity respond to today's pressing environmental challenges.
With this in mind, the French Natural History Museum is committed to supporting only those bioinspiration projects that create a more sustainable planet.
A closer look at giant species... and their bones
Present-day species are just a snapshot of life at a specific period in time. They allow us to study only a small sample of possible forms. Hundreds of other periods in the history of life have hosted just as great a diversity of species.
Forms found in a present-day species may have appeared many times over the last few hundred million years, but be relatively unknown.
The structure of bones, more hollow than those of concrete columns, may inspire less resource-intensive construction.
© MNHN - A. HoussayeOne example is bones, which have a complex, hollow internal structure providing a more optimal combination of strength and lightness than solid structures.
Recent studies have made it possible to design weight-bearing structures, particularly for the construction industry, based on bone microstructures - offering a superior ratio of load-bearing capacity to resource use.
Paraceratherium belonged to the same family as today's rhinoceroses, but they could stand 4 meters tall and weigh over 15 tonnes.
© Juulijs - stock.adobe.comDrawing inspiration from the heaviest land animals
If we studied the adaptations that enable today's terrestrial “giants” to support their own weight, we would be limited to African elephants, which can weigh up to 8 tonnes, and a few other animals.
However, by extending our research into the fossil record, we can study elephants' close relatives, including mammoths, which weighed around 10 tonnes.
Going even further back within the mammalian taxon, around 30 million years ago, animals of the rhinoceros lineage, the Paraceratherium, weighed up to 20 tonnes.
Many sauropod femurs have been discovered during excavations, such as those carried out in the summer of 2024 at Angeac-Charente.
© MazanBut when it comes to studying the heaviest animals to have walked the earth, we have to go all the way back to the Mesozoic, and the sauropods. These large, long-necked, four-legged dinosaurs could weigh over 100 tons!
By examining the bones of sauropods and comparing them with other large animals, both extant and extinct, we can better understand the adaptations that enabled these structures to be very strong, without being overly heavy.
The internal structure of fossil bones is currently being investigated through palaeo-bioinspiration, with the aim of designing load-bearing structures that are far less costly in terms of materials yet offer the same mechanical strength.
These bone structures could also inspire the development of technologies in the fields of medicine (prostheses, etc.), aeronautics and robotics.
Innovation supported by the Museum's exceptional collections
In addition to its research activities and scientific expertise, the French Museum of Natural History is home to one of the world's largest palaeontological collections, with over 5 million specimens.
These specimens, of all sizes and from all periods of life on Earth, testify to the diversity of extinct species: animals and plants, marine, terrestrial and flying life forms...
These collections represent a gigantic library of biological models that could inspire sustainable innovations and help build a greener future.
Extinct species are neither "ill-adapted" nor "obsolete"
A widespread, but erroneous, view of life's history is that evolution has a direction: "obsolete" species are replaced by species that are more adapted, more efficient - in a word, "better".
This would mean that only earth’s most recent species would be worthy of interest for bioinspiration.
Events such as asteroid impacts can spell the end for thousands of species, even if they were highly adapted to their environments.
© James Thew - stock.adobe.comHowever, this is not the case. Groups of species can survive for tens of millions of years as a result of their adaptations, and then become extinct due to abrupt environmental change. For example, the flying vertebrates pterosaurs, lived for over 150 million years before disappearing completely during the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event. Their disappearance in no way calls into question all the characteristics that enabled them to survive and reproduce during their time on earth, nor the potential they offer for bioinspired innovation. Indeed, very large species and predators have often been heavily impacted by environmental changes. Yet the adaptations that enabled them to reach these sizes (vertebrate bone structures, tree trunks...) or to be efficient predators (teeth, limbs...) remain particularly interesting sources of bioinspiration for a variety of fields.
The results of evolution
Over the last 3.8 billion years, billions of species have lived on Earth, each adapted to its environment. This immense ecological diversity provides a wealth of potential ideas for researchers, engineers and designers seeking solutions to technical challenges in their research and development efforts!
Some pterosaurs, like these Quetzalcoatlus, could grow to be as big as today's giraffes.
CC BY 3.0 Fotos 593 - stock.adobe.comLife forms that have stood the test of time
No species is perfectly optimized, but organisms best adapted to any given set of conditions are the most likely to survive, reproduce and pass on their characteristics. Life forms that existed for millions of years before becoming extinct can thus be an indication of successful adaptation to their environment over time.
Coming back to Pterosaurs : these flying vertebrates lived on Earth from around 230 to 66 million years ago. At least 200 different species of Pterosaurs are known to paleontologists, with a wide variety of morphologies and lifestyles.
This group dominated the skies for millions of years, thanks to a combination of adaptive traits. For example, the complex, irregular, thin-walled structure of their wings was both light and highly resistant. This enabled them to fly, swim and walk.
Some bivalve molluscs are able to burrow into the seabed. The diversity of shapes, sizes and external structures of their shells - well preserved in the fossil record - makes it possible to devise systems that can anchor themselves in unstable substrates.
© D. P. Germann et J. P. Carbajal 2013Studying variations of the same form
Within a taxon (a set of species descended from the same ancestor), groups of species can develop variations on the same form. There are, for example, several wing shapes in birds, carapace shapes in crustaceans or shell shapes in molluscs, especially when the entire evolutionary history of these groups is taken into account.
These multiple variations represent complementary examples that can be used to find the most appropriate solution to a technological requirement, drawing on different forms that have appeared over the course of evolution.
Both ichthyosaurs and cetaceans are marine animals with terrestrial ancestors, and both independently developed highly advanced adaptations for moving and hunting in water (along with certain sharks and fish).
© Ichthyosaure par MNHN - C. Dégardin, Dauphin par SciePro - AdobeStockSometimes it's useful to study groups of organisms that are morphologically similar, but phylogenetically very different: i.e. far apart in the “tree of life”.
Despite their different evolutionary origins, some species may acquire similar traits. This is known as convergent evolution. For example:
- thunniform swimming, which appeared separately in bony fish, sharks, mammals and ichthyosaurs;
- camera eyes, found in cephalopods, vertebrates and certain jellyfish.
These common characteristics demonstrate that the same “solution” to a given functional “problem” has proven effective in different contexts. Convergent evolution may therefore represent a reliable source of ideas for bioinspiration. The fossil record contains more examples of convergent evolution than current species, with evolutionary biologists having extensive knowledge of this phenomenon.
A fossil record that complements today's biodiversity
Of course, today's species and environments are much better known than those of the past. This means that, in the field of bioinspiration, the fossil record complements rather than substitutes contemporary living organsims.
Palaeontology and evolutionary biology provide a better understanding of current life forms and the contexts in which certain species' features may have arisen. In turn, the study of extant species provides an essential contribution to our comprehension of past life forms.
Which sectors could benefit from palaeo-bioinspiration?
Among the myriad of flying insects that can inspire innovation, the largest are the giant dragonflies Meganeuropsis and Meganeura, which lived nearly 300 million years ago.
© warpaintcobra - stock.adobe.comPalaeo-bioinspiration can supplement our knowledge of the living world by helping to explain the origin of certain features, and by providing numerous examples of alternative life forms that have now disappeared.
For some industries, the fossil record offers particularly promising opportunities for bioinspiration, as illustrated by the following examples:
- Marine innovation and the design of underwater structures, since a large proportion of known fossil organisms are marine;
- Building construction, which can draw inspiration from extinct organisms of gigantic proportions, far more numerous and diverse than today's “giants”;
- Aeronautics, given the great variety of flying fossil organisms, and their various stages of adaptation to flight;
- Protective technologies, since many extinct species were equipped with armour, or exoskeletons, to protect them from predators (and these structures are conducive to fossilisation);
- Adaptation to environmental change, via the study of past impacts and the way ecosystems subsequently adapted or re-established themselves.
Nevertheless, palaeo-bioinspiration is still in its infancy: the first international workshop on palaeo-bioinspiration and the first international symposium, both organised by the French Museum of Natural History, date from 2021 and 2023 respectively. The potential for inspiration offered by the fossil record still remains to be discovered.
Scientific author
Annabelle Aish
Project Lead: Bioinspire-Muséum.
Proofreading and validation
Alexandra Houssaye, CNRS research director (Mécanismes Adaptatifs : des Organismes aux Communautés - UMR 7179).
Guillaume Lecointre, Professor, Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (Institut de Systématique, Évolution, Biodiversité - UMR 7205).
Scientific paper
Aish Annabelle, Broeckhoven Chris, Buffa Valentin, Challands Tom, Du Plessis Anton, Fletcher Tom, Frey Eberhard, Garrouste Romain, Houssaye Alexandra, Lecointre Guillaume, Perricone Valentina, Petit Luce-Marie, Shyam Vikram, Speck Thomas & Habib Michael, 2025 — Palaeo-bioinspiration: Drawing on the fossil record to advance innovation. Communications biology. 10.1038/s42003-025-08043-6
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