For wing movement away from the viewer, the reverse is true and the outermost patches appear first ( Figure 1A patch 2 and 3, 10°–20° patch 1, 20°–30° see Figure S1 for data for males 2 and 3). With rotation toward the viewer, the wing patch closest to the body appears first (patch 1, 10°–20°), with the outer patches appearing later (patches 2 and 3, 20°–30°) ( Figure 1A). Each of the males’ three wing patches appears or disappears in succession. In males, the total size of the dark patches increases with horizontal rotation about the long body axis (roll), reaching a maximum size at an angle of approximately 20°−30° away from normal ( Figure 1A). The species is strongly sexually dimorphic males feature three dark patches on the brown dorsal forewing that change in size depending on the angle of the wing relative to the viewer ( Figure 1A see also Video S1), while in females, the whole surface of the dorsal forewing gradually darkens with changing angle ( Figures 1B, S2A, and S2B). Flickering of the male’s wings would yield a flashing, supernormal visual stimulus [ The strong sexual dimorphism in the arrangement and architecture of the scale nanostructures suggests that these patterns might function for sexual signaling. At near-normal incidence of light, these “mirror scales” act as thin-film reflectors to produce a sparkly effect, but when light is incident at ∼20°–30° from normal, the reflectance spectrum is dominated by the diffuse scattering of the underlying, black melanin-containing scales, causing a shape-shifting effect. These optical special effects are generated using specialized wing scales that are tilted on the wing and behave like mirrors. ![]() Males feature three dark wing patches on the dorsal forewings, and the apparent size of these patches strongly varies depending on the angle of the wing to the viewer. Structural coloration is not known in night-flying Lepidoptera, yet here we show a highly unusual form of wing coloration in a nocturnal, sexually dimorphic moth, Eudocima materna (Noctuidae).
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