Bálint Zsolt, Katona Gergely, Sáfián Szabolcs, Collins Steve, Piszter Gábor, Kertész Krisztián, Biró László Péter
Hungarian Natural History Museum, Department of Zoology, Baross utca 13, 1088 Budapest, Hungary.
Institute of Technical Physics and Materials Science, Centre for Energy Research, 29-33 Konkoly Thege Miklós St., 1121 Budapest, Hungary.
Insects. 2023 Mar 21;14(3):303. doi: 10.3390/insects14030303.
The nymphalid butterfly (Hopffer, 1855) is the only structurally coloured species representing the genus along the Indian Ocean coast in East Africa and Southern Africa, with a distribution from southern Somalia to the Kwa-Zulu-Natal region of South Africa. The range of is subdivided to several, geographically distinct populations, currently recognised as subspecies by taxonomists on the basis of violet, blue, and green-coloured morphs. We investigated the optical mechanism of all these morphs by various materials science techniques. We found that the structural colour is generated by the lower lamina of the cover scales and the different colours are tuned according to their thickness, which was also proved by modelling. The colour tuning of the different subspecies does not reflect any clinal pattern, be it geographical or altitudinal.
蛱蝶（霍普费尔，1855年）是东非和南非印度洋沿岸唯一具有结构色的代表该属的物种，分布范围从索马里南部到南非的夸祖鲁-纳塔尔地区。其分布范围被细分为几个地理上不同的种群，目前分类学家根据紫色、蓝色和绿色形态将其认定为亚种。我们通过各种材料科学技术研究了所有这些形态的光学机制。我们发现，结构色是由覆盖鳞片的下层薄片产生的，不同颜色根据其厚度进行调整，这也通过建模得到了证实。不同亚种的颜色调整并不反映任何渐变模式，无论是地理上的还是海拔上的。
