If you look closely at the accompanying photo, you will see the small mottles, or blemishes, on the insect’s wing, giving its disguise even more realism.
Little wonder, then, that paleontologist Wootton concluded on this subject: “The better we understand the functioning of insect wings, the more subtle and beautiful their designs appear.”
He writes that when he was a graduate student in the 1960’s, he began to suspect that insect wings were “far more than abstract patterns of veins and membrane,” as they were often depicted.
Consider: Researchers at Ohio State University studying the Giant Blue Morpho butterfly (Morpho didius) found that although the insect’s wings look smooth to the naked eye, the surfaces are covered with minute overlapping scales that resemble tiles on a roof.