True colors: Using X-rays to trace the evolution of insects’ structural colors

By using powerful X-rays at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at the U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory, a team of researchers from Singapore and Ireland looked at the wing casings of two fossilized weevils (a species of small beetle) from the late Pleistocene era. They found that the photonic nanostructures of crystal-like material that scatter or diffract light on the weevils’ wings were perfectly preserved, indicating that the blue and green structural colors of these weevils has not changed in 13,000 years.