Figure 3. Examples of Raman spectra of white hair, and of hairless thorax ventral side cuticle, in Bombus, and peak identification after having applied the reference deconvolution method.

The gray line represents the Raman spectrum, the dashed green lines represent the single deconvoluted curves, which highlight the different peaks contributing to the spectrum, and the red line represents the sum of the deconvoluted curves (i.e., the adjustment to the spectrum, whose goodness of fit expressed as R² value). Signature peaks for chitin, signature peaks for N-acetyl-d-glucosamine. (A) abdomen of Bombus lucorum; (B) abdomen of Bombus terrestris; (C) abdomen of Bombus soroeensis; (D) abdomen of Bombus gerstaeckeri. Note that no melanin peaks and overall very low intensity signal were detected in white hair.