Effects of Measurement Configurations on the Sensitivity of Morpho Butterfly Scales Based Chemical Biosensor

The Morpho butterfly wing with tree-shaped alternating multilayer is an effective chemical biosensor to distinguish between ambient medium, and its detection sensitivity is inextricably linked to the measurement configuration including incident angle, azimuthal angle, and so on. In order to reveal the effects and the selection of measurement configuration. In this work, the model of the Morpho butterfly wing is built using the rigorous coupled-wave analysis method by considering its profile is a rectangular-groove grating. On basis of the above model, the reflectivity of different diffraction orders at a different incident angle and azimuthal angle is calculated, and the influence of incident angle and azimuthal angle on performance of Morpho butterfly scales-based biosensor is analyzed. The optimal incident angle at each azimuthal angle is given according to the proposed choice rule, then the azimuthal angle and the corresponding incident angle can be selected further.

Three new species of Sternaspidae (Annelida: Sedentaria) from Thailand

In this contribution, three new species of sternaspids collected from sediments along the coast of southern Thailand are described: Petersenaspis apinyae sp. nov. from a depth of 50–80 m offshore in the Gulf of Thailand; P. narisarae sp. nov. from 9 m depth in the Songkhla Sea, Gulf of Thailand; and P. pakbaraensis sp. nov. from tidal mudflats on the Andaman Coast. All three species resemble P. palpallatoci Sendall & Salazar-Vallejo, 2013. They differ mainly in the pigmentation and shape of the shield, the number of ventral chaetae and chaetae at the posterior shield, body papillae, and size of the abdomen. Further, P. apinyae sp. nov. is clearly distinguished from other species of the genus by having dark orange to red butterfly wing-shaped shields, with strongly curved anterior margins. P. narisarae sp. nov. differs from other species by having concentric colored bands over shields and an expanded oval abdomen. P. pakbaraensis sp. nov. can be distinguished from other species by its dark brown-purple shield and laterally expanded fan. These three species have a unique character in their branchial plates: long brownish filaments. A key to the identification of all species of Petersenaspis is included.

The relationship of mean temperature and 9 collected butterfly species’ wingspan as the response of global warming

Background Organism body size is a basic characteristic in ecology; it is related to temperature according to temperature-size rule. Butterflies are affected in various aspects by climate change because they are sensitive to temperature. Therefore, this study was conducted to understand the effect of an increase in temperature due to global warming on the wing of butterflies. Results A total of 671 butterflies belonging to 9 species were collected from 1990 to 2016 in Seoul (336 specimens) and Mokpo (335 specimens). Consequently, as the mean temperature increased, the wing length of the species increased. However, there are exceptions that the Parnassius stubbendorfii, Pieridae canidia, and Pieris rapae wing length of Seoul increased, but the butterfly wing length of Mokpo decreased. Conclusions The positive correlations between the butterfly wing length and mean temperature showed that the change of mean temperature for about 26 years affects the wing length of butterfly species. The exception is deemed to have been influenced by the limited research environment, and further studies are needed. We would expect that it can be provided as basic data for studying effect of climate change.

Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy for Molecule Characterization: HIM Investigation into Sources of SERS Activity of Silver-Coated Butterfly Scales

Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) is a powerful technique for obtaining structural information of molecules in solution at low concentrations. While commercial SERS substrates are available, high costs prevent their wide-spread use in the medical field. One solution is to prepare requisite noble metal nanostructures exploiting natural nanostructures. As an example of biomimetic approaches, butterfly wing scales with their intricate nanostructures have been found to exhibit exquisite SERS activity when coated with silver. Selecting appropriate scales from particular butterfly species and depositing silver of certain thicknesses leads to significant SERS activity. For morphological observations we used scanning electron microscopes as well as a helium ion microscope, highly suitable for morphological characterization of poorly conducting samples. In this paper, we describe a protocol for carrying out SERS measurements based on butterfly wing scales and demonstrate its LOD with a common Raman reporter, rhodamine 6 G. We also emphasize what special care is necessary in such measurements. We also try to shed light on what makes scales work as SERS substrates by carefully modifying the original nanostructures. Such a study allows us to either use scales directly as a raw material for SERS substrate or provides an insight as to what nanostructures need to be recreated for synthetic SERS substrates.