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Chitons are mollusks in the sea that have armor-plated eyes embedded in their shells.

This feature could be the inspiration for the army's and workers' protective armor in dangerous situations.

The chitons, or Acanthopleura granulates are covered with hundreds of armored eyes on their shells, reports MIT  While most eyes in the biological world are made of protein, these eyes are made of the mineral aragonite. However, the eyes can still form focused images, according to HNGN.

"[These mineral-based eyes] allow the animal to monitor its environment with the protective armor shell. The majority of the shell is opaque, and only the eyes are transparent," said recent MIT graduate and Harvard postdoc Ling Li.

Residing in the intertidal zone, exposed to both water and air, chitons have "potato chip-sized eyes" that require to operate under both conditions. Scientists showed that the eyes "can focus light and create images" within the photoreceptive chamber under the lens.

High-resolution X-ray tomography equipment and material characterization techniques were used by the scientists to study the 3-D "architecture" of the eyes. Earlier, researchers had thought that chiton eyes were too tiny and could not form focused images.

This new finding is hoped to be the idea behind the formation of materials that can offer physical protection and optical visibility simultaneously.

"High-resolution structure and property studies of the chiton system provide fascinating discoveries into materials-level tradeoffs imposed by the disparate functional requirements, in this case protection and vision, and are key to extracting design principles for multifunctional bio-inspired armor," said MIT professor Christine Ortiz.

The findings were published in a recent edition of Science.