A nod to the art folks

Only yesterday I remarked upon the beautiful artwork for the Focus feature I wrote. (In fact, the scientist I profiled is so enamoured with it that she wants a print for her office.) Now my article on structural colour has come out in Education in Chemistry and the art team have used this stunning beetles image, which is currently full size on the front of their website.

It's illustrating the fact that many beetles get their colours from the structures in the layers of their exoskeletons, as opposed to (or as well as) colour pigments. Although as the squid scientist I interviewed pointed out, the picture is certainly pretty, but the colour structures in beetles aren't nearly as sophisticated as in squid - beetles only make static colour this way, while squids make dynamic colour, producing any colour in the visible spectrum by altering the structures in their skin. (Within microseconds!)