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Like shingles on a roof, vivid, emerald-green scales adorn the wings of the Amazonian butterfly emerald-patched cattleheart. Researchers from Yale University, using an X-ray scattering technique, were able to determine the 3-D internal structure of the scales on the wings of several species of butterflies.
The crystal nanostructures that give butterflies their color are called gyroids -- strange, 3-D curving structures that selectively scatter light. The gyroids are made of chitin (the same tough, starchy material that forms the exoskeletons of insects and crustaceans), which is usually deposited on the outer membranes of cells.Image credit: Richard Prum, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University
