Photonic crystals cause active colour change in chameleons
By J. Teyssier, Suzanne V Saenko, D. van der Marel, M. Milinkovitch. Nature Communications, 2015
1,171 citations recorded by the source corpus.
Many chameleons, and panther chameleons in particular, have the remarkable ability to exhibit complex and rapid colour changes during social interactions such as male contests or courtship. It is generally interpreted that these changes are due to dispersion/aggregation of pigment-containing organelles within dermal chromatophores. Here, combining microscopy, photometric videography and photonic band-gap modelling, we show that chameleons shift colour through active tuning of a lattice of guanine nanocrystals within a superficial thick layer of dermal iridophores. In addition, we show that a deeper population of iridophores with larger crystals reflects a substantial proportion of sunlight especially in the near-infrared range. The organization of iridophores into two superposed layers constitutes an evolutionary novelty for chameleons, which allows some species to combine efficient camouflage with spectacular display, while potentially providing passive thermal protection. Colour change in many vertebrates originates from pigment dispersion or aggregation. Here, Teyssier et al. show that chameleons rapidly shift colour through a physical mechanism involving a lattice of nanocrystals in dermal iridophores, a second and deeper iridophore layer strongly reflects near-infrared light.
Subfields: Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics, Global and Planetary Change
View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/0919a14a404265b73fa1fc698ad6ec53bde17e3a
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In Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Citations in the corpus
- Bioinspired living structural color hydrogels (2018, background): “Inspired by the structural color shiftmechanism of chameleons (31), which occurs through the control of dermal iridophores via active tuning of their guanine nanocrystal lattice PBGs (Fig.”
- Color Change, Phenotypic Plasticity, and Camouflage (2016, background): “KEY CONCEPT 3 | Costs and adaptive value of color change There are many unresolved questions in color change and camouflage, including how exactly color change works, what the metabolic costs are, and the adaptive advantage provided.”