"Rainbow" that spans the spider's butt of the natural world minimum makes progress in optical technology

How do spiders with colorful and beautiful rainbow-colored patterns in their bodies produce rainbows? As a result of being investigated, it turns out that it has a very unique and fine structure. This research has raised the possibility of boosting the limits of existing optical and color technologies.

Rainbow peacock spiders inspire miniature super-iridescent optics | Nature Communications
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02451-x

Nature's smallest rainbows, created by peacock spiders, may inspire new optical technology
https://phys.org/news/2018-01-nature-smallest-rainbows-peacock-spiders.html

'Nature's Smallest Rainbow' Found on Australian Spider's Butt
https://www.livescience.com/61318-peacock-spider-smallest-rainbow.html

Living in AustraliaPeacock Spider(M equipment robinsoni)Has a colorful and beautiful pattern on the body while being less than 5 mm in length, and is known for doing visual and complicated courtship behavior like dance. It is a very unusual example in the natural world that "male uses rainbow colors for courting behaviors to attract females".


So, how does Peacock Spider create a rainbow? I studied that at the University of California, San DiegoScripps Oceanographic Research InstituteBor-Kai Hsiung who is the postdoctoral doctor. When Mr. Hsiung was a doctoral student at Akron University, he formed a team of biologists, physicists, engineers and worked on the research.

The research team hypothesized how spider scales are creating rainbows using various technologies such as optical microscopy, hyperspectral imaging and optical models. After that, we created a model of the latest nano 3D printer and verified the hypothesis.

When the investigation was underway, the rainbow of the Peacock spider is found to be produced from two types of scale in the abdomen of the spider. The scale of the Peacock spider and Black Although two such as those iridescent and velvet, black scale are aligned orderly iridescent flakes whereas that randomly oriented, so mass It sticks to the epidermis. And one rainbow-colored scales are nanoDiffraction gratingAre arranged three-dimensionally and in parallel, and separate wavelengths of different lights at different angles. "The unique lattice shape of M device robinsoni disperses the visible light at a small angle, even visible at such a small distance the entire visible light is dispersed and the microscopic rainbow pattern clearly appears" He wrote.


According to Akron University who engaged in the research, this discovery pushes the limits of existing optical and color technology, in particular, it can be utilized in detailed tools used in space missions and wearable systems that perform chemical detection It is said that sex is thought.

The peacock spider's courtship status can be seen from the following. Although it is a peacock spider who makes vivid and beautiful dance, male who failed courtship is sometimes eaten by females, so it is exactly a courtesy behavior of life.

Peacock Spider - YouTube