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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...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Wong, Victoria L., Marek, Paul E.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: PeerJ Inc. 2020
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.
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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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