Butterfly blues and greens caused by subtractive colour mixing of carotenoids and bile pigments.
J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol
; 2023 Jul 12.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37436440
ABSTRACT
Butterflies often have conspicuously patterned wings, due to pigmentary and/or structurally wing scales that cover the wing membrane. The wing membrane of several butterfly species is also pigmentary coloured, notably by the bile pigments pterobilin, pharcobilin and sarpedobilin. The absorption spectra of the bilins have bands in the ultraviolet and red wavelength range, resulting in blue-cyan colours. Here, a survey of papilionoid and nymphalid butterflies reveals that several species with wings containing bile pigments combine them with carotenoids and other short-wavelength absorbing pigments, e.g., papiliochrome II, ommochromes and flavonoids, which creates green-coloured patterns. Various uncharacterized, long-wavelength absorbing wing pigments were encountered, particularly in heliconiines. The wings thus exhibit quite variable reflectance spectra, extending the enormous pigmentary and structural colouration richness of butterflies.
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1
Coleções:
01-internacional
Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Idioma:
En
Revista:
J Comp Physiol A Neuroethol Sens Neural Behav Physiol
Ano de publicação:
2023
Tipo de documento:
Article