Insect colour and migration

1 Jan 2022

These educational panels highlight some of the extraordinary features of insect life. One such feature is the array of colour seen across taxa, arising from both structural and pigmented colours.

Structural colour is that which interacts with light, with these interactions leading to iridescence, resulting in metallic beetles known as jewel beetles. Insects are also capable of extraordinary migrations, think for example of the 2,500 km monarch butterfly migration, from breeding grounds in the United States and Canada to wintering grounds in Mexico.