Why "metallic" colours on some insects?

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Lou Jost
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Re: Why "metallic" colours on some insects?

Post by Lou Jost »

A nice report on the breeding work mentioned above:
https://www.azolifesciences.com/news/20 ... olors.aspx

Pau
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Re: Why "metallic" colours on some insects?

Post by Pau »

MarkSturtevant wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 9:17 am
As to peacocks, I can make some generalizations since I teach about them in my Evolution class...
Well said, Mark.
As Biology teacher I explained more or less the same in sexual selection lessons, a most interesting example and very attractive for students.
The genial Darwin's ideas are still valid 150 years later
Pau

rjlittlefield
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Re: Why "metallic" colours on some insects?

Post by rjlittlefield »

Lou Jost wrote:
Sun Aug 08, 2021 11:41 am
A nice report on the breeding work mentioned above:
https://www.azolifesciences.com/news/20 ... olors.aspx
This report includes a link which leads to the original paper as PDF, linked at https://elifesciences.org/articles/52187 . Note that there is a separate document containing supplementary illustrations.

I am fascinated to note that in this paper, titled "Structural color in Junonia butterflies evolves by tuning scale lamina thickness", the authors investigated which features of the scale were responsible for the colors, by dissecting individual scales and looking at the pieces separately. On page 5 of the supplement, the caption reads
Figure 2—figure supplement 1. Detailed characterization of dissected scales. (A) HIM image of a partially dissected scale. The arrow shows the exposed lamina and asterisks show detached swaths of all other scale components, that is ridges and crossribs.
This is quite the exercise in micro-manipulation!

--Rik

Lou Jost
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Re: Why "metallic" colours on some insects?

Post by Lou Jost »

The thing that most impressed me was the cut-away pupa skin which exposed the developing wing for micro-observations. It was done with such care that the pupa developed into an adult.

Here is a description of this kind of surgical procedure:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/artic ... ne.0089500

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