Creatures have evolved the unique wetting-controlled strategies on their surfaces to collect water for the sake of survival, such as Beetle back, spider silk and plant leaf as well, which inspires us to open the area of novel researches. In this feature article, we review the theoretical basis of wetting-controlling regarding of wettability and highlight the biological wetting-controlled strategies in water transport, and water collection, and also introduce some bio-inspired materials with water collection properties. It is significant to design the novel materials that would be used in the fields of responsive, smart catalysis, filtration and sensing besides water collection. Crown Copyright (C) 2013 Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.