Diagrams (top) and electron microscope images (bottom) of chiton shells. From left to right: Aesthetes (green) are fount on all chitons, while shell eyes (blue) and eyespots (red) only evolved in a ...

You’d probably walk past a chiton without even seeing it. These creatures often look like nothing more than another speck of seaweed on the crusty intertidal rocks. But it sees you. At least, if it’s ...

When it comes to body armor, there's typically a trade-off – it can either be highly impact-resistant or flexible, but not both. That may not be the case for much longer, however, thanks to an ...

This essay was launched by reading an almost unintelligible (to me) scientific paper about chiton eyes. Nevertheless, that paper led to others, and here I have summarized some of the related natural ...

A team of MIT researchers has looked closer than ever before at the unique shells of chitons, using X-rays to discover their secrets. The results reveal a no-compromise setup that provides the tiny ...

Biologists have often wondered what would happen if they could rewind the tape of life’s history and let evolution play out all over again. Would lineages of organisms evolve in radically different ...

As a fish swims over the ocean floor, it’s being watched by hundreds of rocks. The rocks are actually the eyes of a chiton, an armoured relative of snails and other molluscs. Perhaps uniquely among ...