The diabolical ironclad beetle is practically indestructible. Now scientists know why - CNET

You can accidentally stomp on the diabolical ironclad beetle and it won't even flinch.

In a study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, researchers have unraveled the secrets of the diabolical ironclad beetle's astounding crush-resistance and demonstrate how new ultra-tough materials may take advantage of the beetle's biology. .

"The ironclad is a terrestrial beetle, so it's not lightweight and fast but built more like a little tank," said David Kisailus, a professor of materials science and engineering at the University of California, Irvine and co-author on the study, in a release.

The beetle's exoskeleton is so tough it has even presented some issues for entomologists hoping to display them -- it's difficult to put a pin through the ironclad.

The two elytra of the diabolical ironclad beetle fuse together in a winding suture (circled) .

The researchers describe it like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, connecting together.

They took the lessons learned from the beetle's suture and created some carbon fiber jigsaw pieces to test the mechanical strength in a real world application -- fasteners used in aerospace engineering.

The jigsaw pieces that mimicked the ironclad performed the best