Unambiguous evidence of brilliant iridescent feather color from hollow melanosomes in an Early Cretaceous bird

• 作者: Yanhong Pan Zhiheng Li Min Wang Tao Zhao Xiaoli Wang Xiaoting Zheng
• 来源期刊: 国家科学评论（英文版）
• 年，卷（期）: 2022,（2）
• 所属期刊栏目: PERSPECTIVE
• 页码范围: 2-3
• 页数: 2页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

Various plumage colors are roughly produced by pigment-based colors and structural colors[1,2].Brilliant iridescent plumage colors(in which the color changes depending on the reflectance spectra of sunlight at different viewing angles)greatly expand the range of plumage colors and create colors un-achievable by plants or other animals[1].Iridescence is produced by light interfer-ence with photonic crystals,which have periodic changes in their refractive index(RI).Iridescent plumage color is pro-duced by coherent light scattering from periodic ordered stacks of melanosomes within keratin.Based on extensive studies of the melanosomes in iridescent feathers in extant birds,melanosomes that create iridescent plumage colors are broadly classified into four types:solid cylindrical,solid flattened,hollow cylindrical and hollow flattened[2-4].The flat and hollow forms are found exclusivey in iridescent feathers[4].