General Knowledge · 2
What plant seed pods, found clinging to a dog's fur in 1941, inspired the design of Velcro's hook-and-loop fasteners?
Answer
Burrs
George de Mestral examined burdock burrs under a microscope and noticed tiny hooks that caught onto fabric loops, leading him to design Velcro's fastening system.
💡 Did you know?
Velcro was inspired by burrs sticking to a Swiss engineer's dog fur during a hunting trip in 1941.
Other options people guess
- Pinecones
- Acorns
- Milkweed pods
Topics
- inventions
- nature
- history
- design
Know your general knowledge trivia?
Play a free General Knowledge quiz and see how many you get right — no signup needed to start.
More General Knowledge facts
General Knowledge
The engineer who examined dog-fur burrs under a microscope before inventing Velcro held citizenship in which country?
Velcro was invented by a Swiss engineer who noticed burrs stuck to his dog after a hunting trip and examined them under a microscope.
General Knowledge
Which New York inventor patented the safety pin in 1849?
The safety pin was patented in 1849 by a New York inventor who sold the patent rights for $400 to pay off a debt.
General Knowledge
Which Swiss engineer invented Velcro after noticing how burrs clung to his dog's fur during a 1941 hunting trip?
Velcro was inspired by burrs sticking to a Swiss engineer's dog fur during a hunting trip in 1941.
General Knowledge
Which humanitarian emblem was created by inverting the colors of a neutral country's national flag?
The red cross symbol was chosen specifically because Switzerland's flag colors are inverted—a neutral country's flag reversed for aid workers.
General Knowledge
Which American inventor filed the first patent for electronic television in 1927 at just 21 years old?
Philo Farnsworth, age 21, patented television (1927) while living in a San Francisco boarding house on $25/week salary.
General Knowledge
Which English idiom is said to have originated from soldiers biting down on ammunition to endure the pain of surgery without anesthesia?
"Bite the bullet" originated from battlefield surgery before anesthesia, when wounded soldiers literally chewed bullets during amputations to cope with pain.