Michael Bennemann, Stefan Backhaus, Ingo Scholz, Daesung Park, Joachim Mayer, Werner Baumgartner

• Adhesive organs like arolia of insects allow these animals to climb on different substrates by creating high adhesion forces. According to the Dahlquist criterion, arolia must be very soft exhibiting an effective Young's modulus of below 100 kPa to adhere well to different substrates. In previous studies the effective Young´s moduli of adhesive organs were determined using indentation tests yielding their structure to be very soft indeed. However, arolia show a layered structure, thus the values measured by indentation tests comprise the effective Young´s moduli of the whole organs. In this study, a new approach is illustrated to measure the Young´s modulus of the outermost layer of the arolium, i.e. of the epicuticle, of the stick insect Carausius morosus by tensile testing. Due to the inner fibrous structure of the arolium tensile tests allow the characterisation of the overlying epicuticle.