Abstract

Lepidopteran scales, the "dust" that covers the wings of moths and butterflies, are extremely complex in form. Those scales exhibiting structural colors are especially so, for in these, certain scale elements are elaborated into fine-grained architectural arrays that interact with light to produce the colors. The optics of structural colors are well understood by the physicists; biologists would like to know the anatomical bases of biological structural colors and to understand how living cells can make essentially perfect interference filters.

© 1990 Optical Society of America