... as optical thin films. In general practice, however, the varying barbule thickness will obscure the thin film interference effects due to spectral smoothing ( Fig. 1 ; Fig. S1 ). The barbules contain hollow melanosomes, which are closely packed into a few layers and organised into two stacks, each...

... an important additional role, by acting as optical thin film reflectors. We conclude that Morpho coloration is a subtle combination of overlapping pigmented and/or unpigmented scales, multilayer systems, optical thin films and sometimes undulated scale surfaces. Based on the scales' architecture...

... of Biologists Ltd 2013 barbs barbules melanin thin films vision Parrots are well known for their striking, bright coloration ( Berg and Bennett, 2010 ). When at rest, most Amazon parrots show a predominantly green colour ( Fig. 1 ), but feathers with bright yellow, red or blue colours are also...