Welcome to the beginning of your biomimicry journey. This collection is to help you learn about the many incredible animals you are likely to find at your local zoo, and how these animals might inspire new products, processes and systems. An example: a new space suit inspired by a giraffe’s blood circulation and regulation.

Biomimicry is an emerging discipline that looks to the forms, processes, and systems of nature for inspiration in solving human problems.

Janine Benyus coined the term “biomimicry” in 1997 when she published her book Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature [1]. Many terms have been used since the 1900s – biotechnik, bionics, biomimetics, bio-inspired design – but the term biomimicry is understood to indicate ‘sustainable and regenerative’ design inspired by nature. Benyus created the term by combining bios, which refers to life or living things, and mimicry, which means to copy or emulate. So, in its most simple terms biomimicry means copying life. Benyus, a biologist as well as an author, defines biomimicry as “the conscience emulation of nature’s genius.” As Thomas Edison once said, “Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge [2].” Another but perhaps more pragmatic definition is that biomimicry is a sustainable design tool based on emulating strategies used by living things to perform functions that we want our technologies to perform – everything from creating color to generating energy to optimizing data bases. The goal of biomimicry is to design products and processes, companies and policies – new ways of living - that are well adapted to life on earth over an extended period of time.