Wie Fliegen an die Decke gehen

How do flies walk on the ceiling? Many functional solutions for adhering, gluing, and interlocking have evolved independently in different lineages of organisms. Since the diversity of such biological structures and their importance for understanding biology of particular organisms is large, there is a strong need for comparative structural and functional studies. This contribution summarises the original and literature data and proposes classification of biological attachment systems according to several principles. We show a biomimetic potential of studies on biological attachment devices for the further use in technological developments.