Abstract
AbstractPachyrhynchus sarcitis weevils are flightless weevils characterized by colored patches of scales on their dark elytra. The vivid colors of such patches result from the reflection of differently oriented 3D photonic crystals within their scales. The results show that hybrid P. sarcitis, the first filial generation of two P. sarcitis populations from Lanyu Island (Taiwan) and Babuyan Island (Philippines), mixes the color of its ancestors by tuning the photonic structure in its scales. A careful spectroscopical and anatomical analysis of the weevils in the phylogeny reveals the hereditary characteristics of the photonic crystals within their scales in terms of lattice constant, orientation and domain size. Monitoring how structural coloration is inherited by offspring highlights the versatility of photonic structures to completely redesign the optical response of living organisms. Such finding sheds light onto the evolution and development mechanisms of structural coloration in Pachyrhynchus weevils and provides inspiration for the design of visual appearance in artificial photonic materials.
Highlights
The results show that hybrid P. sarcitis, the first filial generation of two P. sarcitis populations from Lanyu Island (Taiwan) and Babuyan Island (Philippines), mixes the color of its ancestors by tuning the photonic structure wide variety of architectures and materials exploited by different organisms, insects produce exquisitely complex 3D photonic architectures.[17,20,21,22]
Monitoring how structural coloration is inherited by offspring highlights the versatility of photonic structures to completely redesign the optical response of photonic crystals with different volume fractions[22,23] and lattice constants[22,23,28] to obtain a wide variety of colorations
By carefully studying the anatomy of the scales of the three weevils, we observed that the captive-bred hybrid P. sarcitis obtain green coloration by maintaining the lattice constant of its ancestors (BPS) and changing the domain size and orientations
Summary
All three P. sarcitis weevils exhibit patterns of colored patches of scales in similar locations on their dark exoskeletons (Figure 1). In the epi-illumination microscope pictures reported in Figure 2A–C, we can observe that for all three weevils every scale shows differently colored areas (domains) with colors in the entire visible spectral range. For all three weevils it is possible to find domains reflecting colors across the entire visible spec tral range from blue to red, with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of ranging from 30 to 108 nm, with generally, a larger FWHM for red-shifted peaks. We notice that the intensity of the reflection peaks varies in different weevils depending on the spectral region: as an example, cyan and green are the most intensely reflected colors in LPS. BPS, all the reflected colors have a comparable reflectance, and the HPS exhibits a higher reflectance of green and yellow
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