Welcome to “necroprinting”—3D printer nozzle made from mosquito’s proboscis

“To integrate the proboscis, we first removed it under a microscope from an already euthanized mosquito,” explains Cao. Then the horn/nozzle was aligned with the outlet of the plastic tip. Finally, the proboscis and tip were bonded with UV curable resin.

The necroprinter achieved a resolution ranging from 18 to 22 microns, half the size of printers using the smallest commercially available metal dispensing tips. Early test prints included honeycomb structures measuring 600 microns, a micro-scale maple leaf, and cell scaffolds.

But there are still areas where man-made technology has managed to beat Mother Nature.

Glass and pressure

The first problem with mosquito nozzles was their relatively low resistance to internal pressure. “It was impressive but still too weak to accommodate some high-viscosity inks,” Cao said.

These inks, which resemble a paste more than a typical fluid, hold their shape better, resulting in more geometrically precise designs that don’t sag or spread under their own weight. This is a problem that Cao’s test prints encountered to some extent.

But that’s not the only area where man-made technology has managed to beat nature. Although mosquito nozzles can outperform plastic or metal alternatives in terms of precision, they cannot outperform glass dispensing nozzles, which can print lines less than a micron and withstand significantly higher pressures.

However, researchers already have some ideas on how to close at least part of this gap. “One possible solution is to use the mosquito proboscis as the core and cover it with ceramic layers to provide much higher strength,” Cao said. And if the pressure problem is solved, the 18-22 micron resolution should be good enough for a lot of things.

Cao thinks that in the future, printers like this could be used to print scaffolds for living cells or microscopic electronic components. The idea is to replace traditional, expensive 3D printing nozzles with more affordable organic counterparts. According to him, the main advantages of mosquito nozzles are their low cost and ubiquity.

Mosquitoes live almost everywhere on Earth and are easy to breed. The team estimates that organic 3D printing nozzles made from mosquito proboscis should cost around 80 cents; Glass and metal alternatives, the researchers say in the paper, cost between 32 and 100 times more.

“We have already started to do more research on the mosquitoes themselves and hope to develop more technical solutions, not only to exploit their deceased bodies, but also to solve the practical problems they cause,” Cao said.

Scientific advances, 2025. DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adw9953