Rainbow of Colors in Wings: How Butterflies are Great Spectroscopists!!

This page will demonstrate how a specific butterfly wing traits relate to specific optics that uses the same principles. For example, cabbage white butterflies use a reflective pigment called leucopterrin to reflect blue light much like dichroic mirrors. On the other hand, the species, Plebejus melissa (Melissa Blue), selects out the blue wavelength by acting as an optical grating tuned to reflect only the blue light.  The wings of the Melissa Blue have small microstructures akin to the grooves on a grating. Notice, the figure to the left illustrates the Melissa Blue reflecting blue laser (407 nm) light while the wing remains mostly dark when shining green laser (542 nm) light on it due to its selectivity. This webpage demonstrations and explanations will be tuned to address most audiences. One goal is to connect science and technology with observations in everyday life, such as butterflies. The take-home message is that although scientists have been performing spectroscopy for a relatively short time, butterflies have been using the same optical principles to acquire specific attributes for camouflage and mating for millions of years.