30 Animals logo (Supplied) Photo: Supplied/BBC
From designing better camouflage to making quieter trains, we humans can learn lots from the animal kingdom. This growing area of research- called biomimicry- is explored in a BBC series called '30 Animals That Made Us Smarter'.
We play some of an episode looking at how the woodpecker's inspiring us to design better bike helmets and black box flight recorders.
And we speak to producer Sarah Blunt about what it is about biomimicry that first inspired her to make a podcast about it. '30 Animals That Made Us Smarter' is presented by Patrick Aryee for the BBC World Service.
'30 Animals That Made Us Smarter' presenter Patrick Aryee (Supplied) Photo: Supplied/BBC