<p>Bio-inspired helicoidal composite laminates, inspired by the intricate helical structures found in nature, present a promising frontier for enhancing the mechanical properties of structural designs. Hence, this study provides a comprehensive investigation into the nonlinear free vibration and nonlinear bending behavior of bio-inspired composite plates. The inverse hyperbolic shear deformation theory (IHSDT) of plates is employed to characterize the displacement field, with the incorporation of Green-Lagrange nonlinearity. The problem is modeled using the <i>C</i>⁰ finite element method (FEM), and an in-house code is developed in the MATLAB environment to solve it numerically. Various helicoidal layup configurations including helicoidal recursive (HR), helicoidal exponential (HE), helicoidal semi-circular (HS), linear helicoidal (LH), and Fibonacci helicoidal (FH) with different layup sequences and quasi-isotropic configurations are studied. The model is validated, and parametric studies are conducted. These studies investigate the effects of layup configurations, side-to-thickness ratio, modulus ratios, boundary conditions, and loading conditions at different load amplitudes on the nonlinear vibration and nonlinear bending behaviors of bio-inspired composite plates. The results show that the laminate sequence exerts a substantial impact on both nonlinear natural frequencies and nonlinear bending behaviors. Moreover, this influence varies across different side-to-thickness ratios and boundary conditions of the bio-inspired composite plate.</p>