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Structure and pigment make the eyed elater’s eyespots black
Surface structures that trap light leading to near complete structural absorption creates an appearance of “super black.” Well known in the natural world from bird feathers and butterfly scales, super black has evolved independently from various anatomical structures. Due to an exceptional ability t...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
PeerJ Inc.
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6964691/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31976171 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8161 |
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author | Wong, Victoria L. Marek, Paul E. |
author_facet | Wong, Victoria L. Marek, Paul E. |
author_sort | Wong, Victoria L. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Surface structures that trap light leading to near complete structural absorption creates an appearance of “super black.” Well known in the natural world from bird feathers and butterfly scales, super black has evolved independently from various anatomical structures. Due to an exceptional ability to reduce specular reflection, these biological materials have garnered interest from optical industries. Here we describe the false eyes of the eyed elater click beetle, which, while not classified as super black, still attains near complete absorption of light partly due to an array of vertically-aligned microtubules. These cone-shaped microtubules are modified hairs (setae) that are localized to eyespots on the dorsum of the beetle, and absorb 96.1% of incident light (at a 24.8° collection angle) in the spectrum between 300–700 nm. Filled with melanin, the setae combine structure and pigment to generate multiple reflections and refractions causing light to travel a greater distance. This light-capturing architecture leaves little light available to receivers and the false eyes appear as deep black making them appear more conspicuous to predators. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-6964691 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | PeerJ Inc. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-69646912020-01-23 Structure and pigment make the eyed elater’s eyespots black Wong, Victoria L. Marek, Paul E. PeerJ Biodiversity Surface structures that trap light leading to near complete structural absorption creates an appearance of “super black.” Well known in the natural world from bird feathers and butterfly scales, super black has evolved independently from various anatomical structures. Due to an exceptional ability to reduce specular reflection, these biological materials have garnered interest from optical industries. Here we describe the false eyes of the eyed elater click beetle, which, while not classified as super black, still attains near complete absorption of light partly due to an array of vertically-aligned microtubules. These cone-shaped microtubules are modified hairs (setae) that are localized to eyespots on the dorsum of the beetle, and absorb 96.1% of incident light (at a 24.8° collection angle) in the spectrum between 300–700 nm. Filled with melanin, the setae combine structure and pigment to generate multiple reflections and refractions causing light to travel a greater distance. This light-capturing architecture leaves little light available to receivers and the false eyes appear as deep black making them appear more conspicuous to predators. PeerJ Inc. 2020-01-13 /pmc/articles/PMC6964691/ /pubmed/31976171 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8161 Text en http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ This is an open access article, free of all copyright, made available under the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) . This work may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. |
spellingShingle | Biodiversity Wong, Victoria L. Marek, Paul E. Structure and pigment make the eyed elater’s eyespots black |
title | Structure and pigment make the eyed elater’s eyespots black |
title_full | Structure and pigment make the eyed elater’s eyespots black |
title_fullStr | Structure and pigment make the eyed elater’s eyespots black |
title_full_unstemmed | Structure and pigment make the eyed elater’s eyespots black |
title_short | Structure and pigment make the eyed elater’s eyespots black |
title_sort | structure and pigment make the eyed elater’s eyespots black |
topic | Biodiversity |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6964691/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31976171 http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.8161 |
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