Introduction: bio-inspired surface textures-nature's tool for delivering functional surfaces 'It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the most responsive to change,' said Charles Darwin. Survival of the fittest is a famous phrase of Herbert Spencer, which describes the idea that, in nature, there is a competition to survive and reproduce. Survival and change are two critical terms, especially as species on earth over millions of years are in continuous combat with changing environments. These environments are typically harsh for organisms to live in, but despite these difficulties organisms have survived and thrived by building harmonic ecosystems within divergent environments including marshy and muddy; deep cold and snowy; hot, dry and desert; and more. Living organisms interact and interface with their surroundings through their outer layers, their surfaces which have adapted and evolved with novel but simple designs and functional properties in this process of combat and survival.The surface (and sub-surface) of an organism, also called skin, is an important interface between an organism and its environment, serving a mission critical role in the process of adaptation and survival. Skin surfaces interact with aggressive environmental factors such as temperature, moisture, abrasive agents such as sand and ice, pH, bacteria and viruses, light, mating abrasive or super smooth surfaces, etc. and their combinations. To combat these aggressive factors, skins have evolved unique design architectures that achieve multifunctional properties including (but not limited to) adhesion, hydrophobicity, hydrophilicity, thermal-management, anti-reflection, structural colors, and spherical vision as highlighted in Fig. 1.The skins of organisms, from here onwards called surfaces, deliver these environment-specific properties by combining textures and material chemistries to exploit classical laws of physics to achieve superior functional properties. The term surface texture captures various facets of a construct including the repetitive arrangement of features, the various shapes and sizes of features (in 2-D and 3-D), and the hierarchical distribution of quasi-periodic connected structures in a multi-dimensional space CIRP Annals -Manufacturing Technology xxx (2018) xxx-xxx