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Classical lepidopteran wing scale colouration in the giant butterfly-moth Paysandisia archon

The palm borer moth Paysandisia archon (Castniidae; giant butterfly-moths) has brown dorsal forewings and strikingly orange-coloured dorsal hindwings with white spots surrounded by black margins. Here, we have studied the structure and pigments of the wing scales in the various coloured wing areas,...

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Autores principales: Stavenga, Doekele G., Leertouwer, Hein L., Meglič, Andrej, Drašlar, Kazimir, Wehling, Martin F., Pirih, Primož, Belušič, Gregor
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5899422/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29666756
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4590
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author Stavenga, Doekele G.
Leertouwer, Hein L.
Meglič, Andrej
Drašlar, Kazimir
Wehling, Martin F.
Pirih, Primož
Belušič, Gregor
author_facet Stavenga, Doekele G.
Leertouwer, Hein L.
Meglič, Andrej
Drašlar, Kazimir
Wehling, Martin F.
Pirih, Primož
Belušič, Gregor
author_sort Stavenga, Doekele G.
collection PubMed
description The palm borer moth Paysandisia archon (Castniidae; giant butterfly-moths) has brown dorsal forewings and strikingly orange-coloured dorsal hindwings with white spots surrounded by black margins. Here, we have studied the structure and pigments of the wing scales in the various coloured wing areas, applying light and electron microscopy and (micro)spectrophotometry, and we analysed the spatial reflection properties with imaging scatterometry. The scales in the white spots are unpigmented, those in the black and brown wing areas contain various amounts of melanin, and the orange wing scales contain a blue-absorbing ommochrome pigment. In all scale types, the upper lamina acts as a diffuser and the lower lamina as a thin film interference reflector, with thickness of about 200 nm. Scale stacking plays an important role in creating the strong visual signals: the colour of the white eyespots is created by stacks of unpigmented blue scales, while the orange wing colour is strongly intensified by stacking the orange scales.
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spelling pubmed-58994222018-04-17 Classical lepidopteran wing scale colouration in the giant butterfly-moth Paysandisia archon Stavenga, Doekele G. Leertouwer, Hein L. Meglič, Andrej Drašlar, Kazimir Wehling, Martin F. Pirih, Primož Belušič, Gregor PeerJ Biophysics The palm borer moth Paysandisia archon (Castniidae; giant butterfly-moths) has brown dorsal forewings and strikingly orange-coloured dorsal hindwings with white spots surrounded by black margins. Here, we have studied the structure and pigments of the wing scales in the various coloured wing areas, applying light and electron microscopy and (micro)spectrophotometry, and we analysed the spatial reflection properties with imaging scatterometry. The scales in the white spots are unpigmented, those in the black and brown wing areas contain various amounts of melanin, and the orange wing scales contain a blue-absorbing ommochrome pigment. In all scale types, the upper lamina acts as a diffuser and the lower lamina as a thin film interference reflector, with thickness of about 200 nm. Scale stacking plays an important role in creating the strong visual signals: the colour of the white eyespots is created by stacks of unpigmented blue scales, while the orange wing colour is strongly intensified by stacking the orange scales. PeerJ Inc. 2018-04-11 /pmc/articles/PMC5899422/ /pubmed/29666756 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4590 Text en ©2018 Stavenga et al. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
spellingShingle Biophysics
Stavenga, Doekele G.
Leertouwer, Hein L.
Meglič, Andrej
Drašlar, Kazimir
Wehling, Martin F.
Pirih, Primož
Belušič, Gregor
Classical lepidopteran wing scale colouration in the giant butterfly-moth Paysandisia archon
title Classical lepidopteran wing scale colouration in the giant butterfly-moth Paysandisia archon
title_full Classical lepidopteran wing scale colouration in the giant butterfly-moth Paysandisia archon
title_fullStr Classical lepidopteran wing scale colouration in the giant butterfly-moth Paysandisia archon
title_full_unstemmed Classical lepidopteran wing scale colouration in the giant butterfly-moth Paysandisia archon
title_short Classical lepidopteran wing scale colouration in the giant butterfly-moth Paysandisia archon
title_sort classical lepidopteran wing scale colouration in the giant butterfly-moth paysandisia archon
topic Biophysics
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5899422/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29666756
http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.4590
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