The colorful phenotypes of birds have long provided rich source material for evolutionary
biologists. Avian plumage, beaks, skin, and eggs—which exhibit a stunning range of cryptic …

Keratin is a highly multifunctional biopolymer serving various roles in nature due to its
diverse material properties, wide spectrum of structural designs, and impressive …

To understand the diversity of ways in which natural materials interact with light, it is
important to consider how their reflectance changes with the angle of illumination or viewing …

The brilliant iridescent plumage of birds creates some of the most stunning color displays
known in the natural world. Iridescent plumage colors are produced by nanostructures in …

The omnipresence of cholesteric liquid crystals (ChLC) in living matter and its associated
optical properties in close linkage to structural colors in nature has inspired present …

Highlights•Diversity of avian structural coloration and underlying nanostructures is
presented.•Structural colors in skin are specified by regulation of collagen fibrillogenesis.• …

Beetles exhibit an extraordinary diversity of brilliant and colourful appearances and optical
effects invisible to humans. Their underlying mechanisms have received some attention, but …

The iridescent plumage of many birds is structurally colored due to an orderly arrangement
of melanosomes in their feather barbules. Here, we investigated the blue-to purple-colored …

Identi cation errors between closely related, co-occurring, species may lead to misdirected
social interactions such as costly interbreeding or misdirected aggression. This selects for …

Biological materials are often composed of relatively weak constituents yet have evolved
complex, hierarchical structures that allow them to achieve remarkable mechanical …