Scientists now know how the iridescent green scarab beetle’s shell get its iridescent hue: A molecular arrangement that reflects light, with the reflected light’s magnetic field oriented like a corkscrew, according to a study published in Science.
The beetles don’t appear green due to pigments, which give flowers and plants their colors. Instead, they get their hue from structural color, or molecular structures that reflect light in a certain manner–the same way birds and butterflies do. Light hitting the shell is reflected by the microstructures, and these reflections create an electric field that forms a clockwise helix. Humans cannot see this property — known as left-handed circular polarization — but can see a green hue [ScienceNews]; some organisms, however, can actually see circular polarization itself. The molecular structure consists of three shapes: pentagons, hexagons, and seven-sided heptagons.
