In order to improve the crashworthiness of thin-walled absorber, a new type of bionic multi-cell tube was designed based on dactyl club microstructure of O. scyllarus. The crashworthiness of bionic multi-cell tubes with different herringbone ratios η (the ratio of herringbone height A and width λ) were comprehensively investigated under different loading angles (θ=0o, 10o, 20o and 30o, respectively). The bionic multi-cell tube presents progressive folding deformation mode under axial (θ=0o) and small oblique loading angle (θ=10o). Compared with axial loading condition, the bionic multi-cell tubes have larger speci?c energy absorption Es and crush force ef?ciency Cf, but smaller peak crush force Fp when θ is 10o. A complex proportional assessment method was applied to solve this multi-criteria decision problem. The result shows that the bionic multi-cell tubes have superior crashworthiness when their η ranges from 0.6 to 1.0, and from 1.5 to 1.7, and η=1.5 was selected the best sectional con?guration herein. Following such optimal selection, a metamodel-based multiobjective optimization method based on polynomial regression metamodel and multiobjective particle optimization algorithm were adopted for the dimensions design of the optimal selection. The optimal parameters of thickness t ranges from 0.75 mm to 1.2 mm, element width λ ranges from 5.5 mm to 9.5 mm, the initial peak crush force Fp and maximum speci?c energy absorption Es is 59.8 kN and 13.28 kJ/kg, respectively. The bionic design and optimization method in this work hope to provide a reference for the lightweight design of thin-walled energy absorber.