What's blue and smells like red paint?
Blue paint
You're welcome.
The material science in making blue colors - particularly when there aren't any blue pigments involved - is amazing. It's based primarily on interference with light reflecting off the surface and deeper layers within the wing scale. There's a great diagram of it at about 3:00 in the video.
It's similar to what happens on the rainbow surface of oil slicks on puddles...or on roast beef.
Even cooler, the butterfly wing scales also have nano-arrangements that also make them hydrophobic.
The video host is correct that the creation of the blues - and other similarly produced colors - is amazing.
It's pretty amazing that no vertebrates produce blue pigment and only a single butterfly actually does.
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