Scientists often use things in nature to design nanometer-scale tools. Things in nature are the result of years (and years) of evolution 
providing scientists with a final design that has undergone a lot of testing and refinement. The butterfly proboscis is an example, it is a long tube that butterflies use to suck up liquids. Researchers at Clemson University have studied the butterfly proboscis and used that to engineer a nano-sipper. They think it could be used to suck up and dispense very tiny (nanoliters, or one-billionth of a liter—think of a 2 liter bottle of soda—there are about 50,000 nanoliters in a drop). The advantage of these butterfly inspired straws are that they don’t get clogged which is a real problem with nanometer-scale fluid channels