From Harry Potter to The Lord of The Rings, tall tales regale us with the potential benefits of invisibility. Many researchers would like to bring such benefits to the real world. One new tech might allow some things to practically hide in plain sight. Its inspiration: the common backyard leafhopper.
A camouflage artist, this insect is an expert nanoengineer.
An adult leafhopper coats its body with a liquid. That goo is filled with tiny, complex nanospheres. These anti-reflective, soccer-ball-shaped objects are called brochosomes (BROK-ih-zoams). As light hits them, they change its behavior, explains Roman Rakitov. He works at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. An insect biologist, he did not work on the new study.
Those brochosomes cut the reflection of both visible and ultraviolet (UV) light. Instead of being shiny and eye-catching, the leafhopper becomes rather dull — like its surroundings. Something that reflects little to no light can become nearly invisible. So those nanostructures in the leafhopper’s coat make it “less visible to some predators,” explains Rakitov. That’s especially true for predators that see only in UV, such as some birds and insects.
Researchers ...
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