A butterfly’s wing is covered in hundreds of thousands of tiny scales like miniature shingles on a paper-thin roof. A single scale is as small as a speck of dust yet surprisingly complex, with a corrugated surface of ridges that help to wick away water, manage heat, and reflect light to give a butterfly its signature shimmer.MIT researchers have now captured the initial moments during a butterfly’s metamorphosis, as an individual scale begins to develop this ridged pattern. The researchers used advanced imaging techniques to observe the microscopic features on…
