Abstract

Many animals in the insect/spider world exhibit strong metallic colours [1]. Such colouration is usually called structural, because the effects are caused by diffraction of light on semi-regular structures at the scale of the wavelength. The surface of the C. thalassina, when observed in an electron microscope shows well developed almost regular grooves, Fig. 1. On a large scale (sub mm) the grooves are wavy but they maintain a remarkably constant sub-micrometre period. The periodicity is near 0.46 pm and the depth is estimated to be 0.15 μm.

© 1998 Optical Society of America