...Cédric Kilchoer; Primož Pirih; Ullrich Steiner; Bodo D. Wilts ABSTRACT Nature's nanostructures can bring about vivid and iridescent colours seen in many insects, notably in beetles and butterflies. While the intense structural colours can be advantageous for display purposes, they may also...

... Iridescence Many bird species feature brightly coloured plumage owing to pigments and/or structural effects. The most common pigments of bird feathers are the carotenoids and melanins. Carotenoids strongly absorb in the blue to green wavelength range, thus causing yellow, orange or red feathers...

... coloration. The highly iridescent feather colours of birds are most commonly produced by the periodic arrangement of melanin-containing organelles (melanosomes) within barbules. Melanin increases the saturation of iridescent colours seen from optimal viewing angles by absorbing back-scattered light; however...

..., these photonic structures have been a model for investigations into bio-inspired adaptive optics. Here, we describe two distinct sexually dimorphic tunable biophotonic features in the commercially important species Doryteuthis opalescens : bright stripes of rainbow iridescence on the mantle just beneath each fin...

... rocks, and biologists researching neurotoxins. These small animals spend much of their time in hiding, showing effective camouflage patterns. When disturbed, the octopus will flash around 60 iridescent blue rings and, when strongly harassed, bite and deliver a neurotoxin that can kill a human. Here, we...

...Melissa G. Meadows; Thomas E. Roudybush; Kevin J. McGraw SUMMARY Many animal displays involve colorful ornamental traits that signal an individual's quality as a mate or rival. Brilliant iridescent ornaments are common, but little is currently known about their production cost and signaling value...

... and windows, is almost flat and closely apposed to the equally flat lower lamina. The glass scales thus approximate ideal thin films, in agreement with the observation that they reflect light directionally and are iridescent. Reflectance and transmittance spectra measured from the glass scales...

... structures create iridescence. The extent of the angle-dependent light scattering increases with decreasing wavelength. All barbs have a cortical envelope with a thickness of a few micrometres. The reflectance spectra of the cortex of the barbs show oscillations when measured from small areas, but when...

... evolution of polarized iridescence and life in a forest light environment. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that the production and detection of polarized light may have adaptive communicative value in those species inhabiting forest habitats with complex light conditions. The potential...

...Stéphanie M. Doucet; Matthew D. Shawkey; Geoffrey E. Hill; Robert Montgomerie SUMMARY Iridescence is produced by coherent scattering of light waves from alternating layers of materials of different refractive indices. In birds,iridescent colours are produced by feather barbules when light...

... structure determines the wavelengths where constructive interference occurs and, hence, the spectral tuning. The spectral tuning of interference colours often varies with angles of illumination and reflection, which produces iridescence. Iridescence and other optical effects mean that interference...

... in the study of animal behaviour and evolution. * e-mail: [email protected] 27 5 1996 27 7 1996 © The Company of Biologists Limited 1998 colour structural coloration light scattering reflection diffraction grating Bragg grating iridescence...

...Kay M. Cooper; Roger T. Hanlon ABSTRACT Cephalopods are renowned for their unique colour change system in which neurally controlled chromatophore organs in the dermis work in combination with subjacent iridescent cells (iridophores) to produce colours and patterns of a wide range ( Messenger, 1979...