Seeing the invisible: Evolution of wing interference patterns in Hymenoptera, and their application in taxonomy
Popular Abstract in Undetermined The transparent wings of tiny parasitic wasps and small flies are remarkably thin, only a few hundreds nanometers thick, and may appear to have a simple structural airfoil design. The thesis deals with new findings about structural color reflections and the ultrastructure of such tiny transparent wings of parasitic wasps. The main discovery is that when seemingly tThe remarkably thin transparent wing membranes in tiny wasps may appear to have a simple structural design, but hide a largely unexplored complex of micro-morphological features that serve aerodynamics and may also function in visual signaling. I found that when such small transparent wings are viewed against a dark background they display vivid structural color patterns due to thin film interfere
