ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2020
Structural colours in diverse Mesozoic insects.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Resin does not safeguard insect DNA during early decay despite preservation of soft tissues.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Specialized bark-gnawing beetles reveal phragmotic defence and subcortical ecology in the Cretaceous.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- A new fossil species of the extant genusEcology and evolution · 2024Article
- Morphological and organic spectroscopic studies of a 44-million-year-old leaf beetle (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) in amber with endogenous remains of chitin.Scientific reports · 2023Article
- Aposematic coloration from Mid-Cretaceous Kachin amber.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2022Article
- Does Structural Color Exist in True Fungi?Journal of fungi (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Article
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Authors and funding
7 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Structural colours, nature's most pure and intense colours, originate when light is scattered via nanoscale modulations of the refractive index. Original colours in fossils illuminate the ecological interactions among extinct organisms and functional evolution of colours. Here, we report multiple examples of vivid metallic colours in diverse insects from mid-Cretaceous amber. Scanning and transmission electron microscopy revealed a smooth outer surface and five alternating electron-dense and electron-lucent layers in the epicuticle of a fossil wasp, suggesting that multilayer reflectors, the most common biophotonic nanostructure in animals and even plants, are responsible for the exceptional preservation of colour in amber fossils. Based on theoretical modelling of the reflectance spectra, a reflective peak of wavelength of 514 nm was calculated, corresponding to the bluish-green colour observed under white light. The green to blue structural colours in fossil wasps, beetles and a fly most likely functioned as camouflage, although other functions such as thermoregulation cannot be ruled out. This discovery not only provides critical evidence of evolution of structural colours in arthropods, but also sheds light on the preservation potential of nanostructures of ancient animals through geological time.
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