The original colours of fossil beetles

Author:

McNamara Maria E.12,Briggs Derek E. G.13,Orr Patrick J.2,Noh Heeso4,Cao Hui4

Affiliation:

1. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA

2. UCD School of Geological Sciences, University College Dublin, Belfield, Dublin 4, Republic of Ireland

3. Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520, USA

4. Department of Applied Physics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA

Abstract

Structural colours, the most intense, reflective and pure colours in nature, are generated when light is scattered by complex nanostructures. Metallic structural colours are widespread among modern insects and can be preserved in their fossil counterparts, but it is unclear whether the colours have been altered during fossilization, and whether the absence of colours is always real. To resolve these issues, we investigated fossil beetles from five Cenozoic biotas. Metallic colours in these specimens are generated by an epicuticular multi-layer reflector; the fidelity of its preservation correlates with that of other key cuticular ultrastructures. Where these other ultrastructures are well preserved in non-metallic fossil specimens, we can infer that the original cuticle lacked a multi-layer reflector; its absence in the fossil is not a preservational artefact. Reconstructions of the original colours of the fossils based on the structure of the multi-layer reflector show that the preserved colours are offset systematically to longer wavelengths; this probably reflects alteration of the refractive index of the epicuticle during fossilization. These findings will allow the former presence, and original hue, of metallic structural colours to be identified in diverse fossil insects, thus providing critical evidence of the evolution of structural colour in this group.

Publisher

The Royal Society

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Environmental Science,General Immunology and Microbiology,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine

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