Abstract
Structural colour in the Morpho butterfly originates from submicron structure within a scale and, for over a century, its colour and reflectivity have been explained as interference of light due to the multilayer of cuticle and air. However, this model fails to explain the extraordinarily uniform colour of the wing with respect to the observation direction. We have performed microscopic, optical and theoretical investigations, and have found that the separate lamellar structure with irregular heights is extremely important. Using a simple model, we have shown that the combined action of interference and diffraction is essential for the structural colour of the Morpho butterfly.
Full Text
The Full Text of this article is available as a PDF (1.0 MB).
Selected References
These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.
- Bernhard C. G., Gemne G., Moller A. R. Modification of specular reflexion and light transmission by biological surface structures. Q Rev Biophys. 1968 May;1(1):89–105. doi: 10.1017/s0033583500000470. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Ghiradella H., Aneshansley D., Eisner T., Silberglied R. E., Hinton H. E. Ultraviolet reflection of a male butterfly: interference color caused by thin-layer elaboration of wing scales. Science. 1972 Dec 15;178(4066):1214–1217. doi: 10.1126/science.178.4066.1214. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Land M. F. The physics and biology of animal reflectors. Prog Biophys Mol Biol. 1972;24:75–106. doi: 10.1016/0079-6107(72)90004-1. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- doi: 10.1098/rspb.1999.0794. [DOI] [PMC free article] [Google Scholar]
- Satoh A., Tokunaga F., Kawamura S., Ozaki K. In situ inhibition of vesicle transport and protein processing in the dominant negative Rab1 mutant of Drosophila. J Cell Sci. 1997 Dec;110(Pt 23):2943–2953. doi: 10.1242/jcs.110.23.2943. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Van Albada MP, Lagendijk A. Observation of weak localization of light in a random medium. Phys Rev Lett. 1985 Dec 9;55(24):2692–2695. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.55.2692. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Vukusic P., Sambles J. R., Lawrence C. R. Colour mixing in wing scales of a butterfly. Nature. 2000 Mar 30;404(6777):457–457. doi: 10.1038/35006561. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- Wolf PE, Maret G. Weak localization and coherent backscattering of photons in disordered media. Phys Rev Lett. 1985 Dec 9;55(24):2696–2699. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.55.2696. [DOI] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]