Abstract
Beetles in dimly lit tropical forests often display structural colours1, but in direct sunlight only part of the insect can be seen from any direction — it appears as a spot of light because multilayer reflectors on its rounded surface act like mirrors2,3. Here we describe a beetle, Pachyrhynchus argus, found in forests in northeastern Queensland, Australia, that has a metallic coloration that is visible from any direction owing to a photonic crystal structure analogous to that of opal4. To our knowledge, this is the first recorded example of an opal-type structure in an animal.
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Affiliations
Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK
- Andrew R. Parker
- , Victoria L. Welch
- , Dominique Driver
- & Natalia Martini
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Competing interests
The authors declare no competing financial interests.
Corresponding author
Correspondence to Andrew R. Parker.
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