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The morpho butterflies comprise many species of Neotropical butterfly under the genus Morpho. This genus includes more than 29 accepted species and 147 accepted subspecies, found mostly in South America, Mexico, and Central America. Morpho wingspans range from for M. rhodopteron to for M. hecuba, the imposing sunset morpho. The name morpho, meaning "changed" or "modified", is also an epithet. Blue morphos are severely threatened by the deforestation of tropical forests and habitat fragmentation. Humans provide a direct threat to this spectacular creature because their beauty attracts artists and collectors from all over the globe who wish to capture and display them. Aside from humans, birds like the jacamar and flycatcher are the adult butterfly’s natural predators. Many names attach to the genus Morpho. The genus has also been divided into subgenera. Hundreds of form, variety, and aberration names are used among Morpho species and subspecies. One lepidopterist includes all such species within a single genus, and synonymized many names in a limited number of species. Two other lepidopterists use a phylogenetic analysis with different nomenclature. Other authorities accept many more species. The genus name Morpho comes from an Ancient Greek epithet μορφώ, roughly "the shapely one", for Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. This list is arranged alphabetically within species groups. Subgenus Iphimedeia Species group hercules Morpho amphitryon Staudinger, 1887 Morpho hercules (Dalman, 1823) – Hercules morpho Morpho richardus Fruhstorfer, 1898 – Richard's morpho Species group hecuba Morpho cisseis C. Felder & R. Felder, 1860 – Cisseis morpho Morpho hecuba (Linnaeus, 1771) – sunset morpho Species group telemachus Morpho telemachus (Linnaeus, 1758) Morpho theseus Deyrolle, 1860 – Theseus morpho Subgenus Iphixibia Morpho anaxibia (Esper, 1801) Subgenus Cytheritis Species group sulkowskyi Morpho sulkowskyi – Sulkowsky's morpho Species group lympharis Morpho lympharis Butler, 1873 – Lympharis morpho Species group rhodopteron Morpho rhodopteron Godman & Salvin, 1880 Species group portis Morpho portis (Hübner, [1821]) Morpho thamyris C.

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Animal coloration

Animal colouration is the general appearance of an animal resulting from the reflection or emission of light from its surfaces. Some animals are brightly coloured, while others are hard to see. In some species, such as the peafowl, the male has strong patterns, conspicuous colours and is iridescent, while the female is far less visible. There are several separate reasons why animals have evolved colours. Camouflage enables an animal to remain hidden from view.

Structural coloration

Structural coloration in animals, and a few plants, is the production of colour by microscopically structured surfaces fine enough to interfere with visible light instead of pigments, although some structural coloration occurs in combination with pigments. For example, peacock tail feathers are pigmented brown, but their microscopic structure makes them also reflect blue, turquoise, and green light, and they are often iridescent.

Biomimetics

Biomimetics or biomimicry is the emulation of the models, systems, and elements of nature for the purpose of solving complex human problems. The terms "biomimetics" and "biomimicry" are derived from βίος (bios), life, and μίμησις (mīmēsis), imitation, from μιμεῖσθαι (mīmeisthai), to imitate, from μῖμος (mimos), actor. A closely related field is bionics. Nature has gone through evolution over the 3.8 billion years since life is estimated to have appeared on the Earth. It has evolved species with high performance using commonly found materials.

Mapping the local dielectric constant of a biological nanostructured system

Juan Pablo Vasco Cano

The aim of this work is to determine the varying dielectric constant of a biological nanostructured system via electrostatic force microscopy (EFM) and to show how this method is useful to study natural photonic crystals. We mapped the dielectric constant ...

BEILSTEIN-INSTITUT2021

Microlenses on Bragg Reflectors to Create Iridescent Colors

Hans Peter Herzig, Toralf Scharf

In nature strong colors play an important role in scaring away predators or finding a mate. Often, the strongest and brightest colors arise from coherent scattering and reflection on periodic structures on a length scale of several micro- or nanometers. Un ...

2008