Honestly I haven’t read the whole thing, I skipped straight to the discussion. It would appear that the adaptational advantages of the color shift aren’t fully understood yet:
The functional implications of this colour variation remain to be explored. Cuticular reflectance directly influences insect body temperatures by mediating radiative heat gain. Structural coloration is also implicated in signalling, mate choice and camouflage [41]. Humidity-driven shifts in colour may therefore contribute to variation in thermal traits and behaviour. Though these effects are still unclear for bees, our findings highlight that structural colours can passively respond to climate variation. Understanding these links will help clarify abiotic effects on visual traits under increasingly variable climate conditions.
So it seems it’s a layer shift in their exoskeleton. I wonder what the mechanism and/or evolutionary pressure was?
I kinda wish the article talked about that part.
@YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today
Rejoice! Here is a link to the paper, which is accessible to the public.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsbl/article/22/4/20250803/481403/Humidity-induces-structural-colour-change-and
Honestly I haven’t read the whole thing, I skipped straight to the discussion. It would appear that the adaptational advantages of the color shift aren’t fully understood yet:
Nice thanks for digging it up.
You rock mothra!
Yeah, unfortunately these types of articles are written for a more general audience.