I'm happy to share a new publication from my dissertation, 'Developmental, cellular and biochemical basis of transparency in clearwing butterflies' in the Journal of Experimental Biology (here’s a Twitter thread that outlines some of the main takeaways).
This has been a fun collaborative project, combining developmental biology, biochemistry and optical physics to find out how living organisms can 'become invisible' in order to camouflage in their environment on land. For these clearwing species, we found that the trick to becoming highly transparent involves morphological innovations, such as modified wing scales and wax-based anti-reflective nanostructures on the wing surface.
Understanding how nature produces such intricate micro- and nanostructures can provide bioinspiration for new anti-reflective materials (for instance, coatings that increase the efficiency of solar panels).
Here is a PDF of the paper and an article write-up on the study can be found here: Intricate structures on butterfly wings could inspire anti-glare technologies
Please let me know if you have any questions!