Structured Beauty

Flutters of yellow, orange, and azure blue have begun to fill the space above my early garden blooms. The rich colors of lepidopteran wings have captivated my creative spirit since I was a young child, but I've since come to appreciate them even more since learning how those colors are created.

The color patterns found on moth and butterfly wings are a result of very chemical pigments, as well as small and intricate scale structures. Pigments create what we see as white, black, browns, and orange on wings. The nanostructures allow light to bounce off scales to create greens, blues, and reds. These structures both create beautiful colors, and are intrinsically beautiful in their own right.

Wing scales are made of a hard material called chitin. But because they are so small, scales are easily removed with the touch of a finger—meaning that I’ve become careful about handling even the lifeless moths and butterflies in the specimen collection.