ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2019
Structurally assisted super black in colourful peacock spiders.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Genetic Control of Tissue Remodeling by a Non-Coding SNP in ITGA8 Explains Carotenoid-Based Color Polymorphism in Marine Mollusks.Advanced science (Weinheim, Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany) · 2026Article
- Ultrablack wool textiles inspired by hierarchical avian structure.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Hidden white and black feather layers enhance plumage coloration in tanagers and other songbirds.Science advances · 2025Article
- Infrared absorbers inspired by nature.Journal of the Royal Society, Interface · 2025Review
- Heart cockle shells transmit sunlight to photosymbiotic algae using bundled fiber optic cables and condensing lenses.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Ultrablack color in velvet ant cuticle.Beilstein journal of nanotechnology · 2024Article
- Wood-based superblack.Nature communications · 2023Article
- The carotenoid redshift: Physical basis and implications for visual signaling.Ecology and evolution · 2023Article
- Structure and Optical Anisotropy of Spider Scales and Silk: The Use of Chromaticity and Azimuth Colors to Optically Characterize Complex Biological Structures.Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- Bioinspired Microstructured Polymer Surfaces with Antireflective Properties.Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- Microstructures amplify carotenoid plumage signals in tanagers.Scientific reports · 2021Article
- Nanoimprint Replication of Biomimetic, Multilevel Undercut Nanostructures.Nanomaterials (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
- The evolution of red color vision is linked to coordinated rhodopsin tuning in lycaenid butterflies.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2021Article
- The Specific Molecular Composition and Structural Arrangement ofInternational journal of molecular sciences · 2020Article
- Structural Diversity with Varying Disorder Enables the Multicolored Display in the Longhorn Beetle Sulawesiella rafaelae.iScience · 2020Article
- Ultra-dense, curved, grating optics determines peacock spider coloration.Nanoscale advances · 2020Article
- Diverse nanostructures underlie thin ultra-black scales in butterflies.Nature communications · 2020Article
- Article
- Structurally assisted super black in colourful peacock spiders.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Male peacock spiders ( Maratus, Salticidae) compete to attract female mates using elaborate, sexually selected displays. They evolved both brilliant colour and velvety black. Here, we use scanning electron microscopy, hyperspectral imaging and finite-difference time-domain optical modelling to investigate the deep black surfaces of peacock spiders. We found that super black regions reflect less than 0.5% of light (for a 30° collection angle) in Maratus speciosus (0.44%) and Maratus karrie (0.35%) owing to microscale structures. Both species evolved unusually high, tightly packed cuticular bumps (microlens arrays), and M. karrie has an additional dense covering of black brush-like scales atop the cuticle. Our optical models show that the radius and height of spider microlenses achieve a balance between (i) decreased surface reflectance and (ii) enhanced melanin absorption (through multiple scattering, diffraction out of the acceptance cone of female eyes and increased path length of light through absorbing melanin pigments). The birds of paradise (Paradiseidae), ecological analogues of peacock spiders, also evolved super black near bright colour patches. Super black locally eliminates white specular highlights, reference points used to calibrate colour perception, making nearby colours appear brighter, even luminous, to vertebrates. We propose that this pre-existing, qualitative sensory experience-'sensory bias'-is also found in spiders, leading to the convergent evolution of super black for mating displays in jumping spiders.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.