Insects locomotion, piercing, sucking and stinging mechanisms

This paper provides an overview of lessons from mosquitoes' locomotion and their painless piercing and from wasp stinging. Based on the understanding, conceptual schematics of bioinspired microneedle designs are presented for biomedical applications. In the first part, mosquitoes locomotory attributes, which are used by them to hunt a host, are described. Next, microanatomy, feeding process, and nanomechanical properties data of mosquitoes' labrum are presented. A hypothesis behind the painless piercing is presented followed by mosquito-inspired microneedle design guidelines. In the second part, wasp anatomy and stinging process are described. Their structure and nanomechanical properties data, modeling of the penetration process, and stinger-inspired microneedle design guidelines are presented.