ArticleJournal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology2024
Butterfly blues and greens caused by subtractive colour mixing of carotenoids and bile pigments.
Article in Journal of comparative physiology. A, Neuroethology, sensory, neural, and behavioral physiology, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.
What it found
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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.
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Who cites it
3 citing papers in PubMed, 10 citations in OpenAlex.
- Bird Community Colours Across Different Types of Habitat.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2026Article
- Article
- A green dichromophoric protein enabling foliage mimicry in arthropods.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
1 author at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
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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