title: Splendid coloration of the peacock spider Maratus splendens.
abstract: Jumping spiders are well known for their acute vision and often bright colours. The male peacock spider Maratus splendens is richly coloured by scales that cover the body. The colours of the white, cream and red scales, which have an elaborate shape with numerous spines, are pigmentary. Blue scales are unpigmented and have a structural colour, created by an intricate photonic system consisting of two chitinous layers with ridges, separated by an air gap, with on the inner sides of the chitin layers an array of filaments. We have characterized the optical properties of the scales by microspectrophotometry, imaging scatterometry and light and scanning electron microscopy. Optical modelling revealed that the filament array constitutes a novel structural coloration system, which subtly fine tunes the scale reflectance to the observed blue coloration.
authors: Computational Physics, Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials, University of Groningen, Nijenborgh 4, 9747AG Groningen, The Netherlands d.g.stavenga@rug.nl.
authors: Doekele G
authors: 0000-0002-2518-6177
authors: DG
authors: Stavenga
authors: 19 Grevillea Avenue, St. Ives, New South Wales 2075, Australia.
authors: Jürgen C
authors: JC
authors: Otto
authors: Adolphe Merkle Institute, University of Fribourg, Chemin des Verdiers 4, 1700 Fribourg, Switzerland.
authors: Bodo D
authors: 0000-0002-2727-7128
authors: BD
authors: Wilts
mesh_terms: D000825:Animal Structures / Q000033:anatomy & histology / Q000502:physiology*; D000818:Animals; D002686:Chitin / Q000378:metabolism; D010858:Pigmentation / Q000502:physiology*; D013112:Spiders / Q000033:anatomy & histology* / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D002686:Chitin
keywords: colour; iridescence; ommochromes; opisthosoma; scattering; vision