| Dramatic colour changes in a bird of paradise caused by uniquely structured breast feather barbules. | |
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MedLine Citation:
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PMID: 21159676 Owner: NLM Status: Publisher |
Abstract/OtherAbstract:
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The breast-plate plumage of male Lawes' parotia (Parotia lawesii) produces dramatic colour changes when this bird of paradise displays on its forest-floor lek. We show that this effect is achieved not solely by the iridescence-that is an angular-dependent spectral shift of the reflected light-which is inherent in structural coloration, but is based on a unique anatomical modification of the breast-feather barbule. The barbules have a segmental structure, and in common with many other iridescent feathers, they contain stacked melanin rodlets surrounded by a keratin film. The unique property of the parotia barbules is their boomerang-like cross section. This allows each barbule to work as three coloured mirrors: a yellow-orange reflector in the plane of the feather, and two symmetrically positioned bluish reflectors at respective angles of about 30°. Movement during the parotia's courtship displays thereby achieves much larger and more abrupt colour changes than is possible with ordinary iridescent plumage. To our knowledge, this is the first example of multiple thin film or multi-layer reflectors incorporated in a single structure (engineered or biological). It nicely illustrates how subtle modification of the basic feather structure can achieve novel visual effects. The fact that the parotia's breast feathers seem to be specifically adapted to give much stronger colour changes than normal structural coloration implies that colour change is important in their courtship display. |
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Authors:
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Doekele G Stavenga; Hein L Leertouwer; N Justin Marshall; Daniel Osorio |
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Publication Detail:
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Type: JOURNAL ARTICLE Date: 2010-12-15 |
Journal Detail:
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Title: Proceedings. Biological sciences / The Royal Society Volume: - ISSN: 1471-2954 ISO Abbreviation: - Publication Date: 2010 Dec |
Date Detail:
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Created Date: 2010-12-16 Completed Date: - Revised Date: - |
Medline Journal Info:
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Nlm Unique ID: 101245157 Medline TA: Proc Biol Sci Country: - |
Other Details:
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Languages: ENG Pagination: - Citation Subset: - |
Affiliation:
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Department of Neurobiophysics, University of Groningen, , 9747 AG, Groningen, The Netherlands. |
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From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine
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