Immoveable mussels, grippy geckos and stubborn shellfish have helped nudge these efforts along in the past, and now another critter has emerged with a few sticky secrets of its own. Researchers have replicated the adhesive secreted by sandcastle worms to form a new kind of underwater glue, a substance they say could find use in a number of applications including tissue repair and dentistry.

Found along the Californian coast, sandcastle worms are reef-building marine animals so named because they construct shelter out of grains of sand that are bound together by a strong underwater adhesive. Like mussels and other glue-producing marine life, scientists have studied the creatures in hopes of developing new, robust glues that can perform in wet environments.