The Science of Wing Patterns and Colours in Butterflies and Moths

Photo Story Updated : Jun 27, 2025
From cryptic patterns and colours that help camouflage them to bright pigments and dazzling wings that fool or warn predators, where and when do butterflies and moths get their colours?
The Science of Wing Patterns and Colours in Butterflies and Moths
From cryptic patterns and colours that help camouflage them to bright pigments and dazzling wings that fool or warn predators, where and when do butterflies and moths get their colours?

Gardens of vibrant blooms attract a riot of splashy butterflies, creating a pleasing mosaic. When it turns dark, the reticent yet ornately understated moths follow. Why have such elaborate colours and patterns? Anyone who uses make-up or paints knows it’s a structured process involving intricacies and effort. The “canvas” needs to be primed, outlines drawn, foundational base applied, colour filled in, and highlights added, to finally get it right. A lot of insects have simple translucent wings, good enough to fly. As is usually the simple answer to any complex evolutionary tale, the designs are for survival, and the flair has purpose. Protection from predators and finding mates for reproduction are the two modes of survival, and wing patterns are critical to Lepidoptera (the order of butterflies and moths). Some butterflies, like the common evening brown (Melanitis leda), may have distinctly different patterns in the wet and dry seasons for camouflage, but an individual butterfly does not change or repair its patterns. Lepidopterans are short-lived. Most butterflies live for 1-6 weeks, and moths from 3 days to 2 weeks, so they did not develop evolutionary mechanisms for the regeneration of wings. One cannot live for long without eating, and it may be surprising to some that adult baroque moths of the Saturniidae family, like the atlas moth (Attacus atlas), do not have mouth parts (a proboscis) to feed.

Despite their short lifespans, lepidopterans are important pollinators. Moths that visit flowers to feed are known to be more efficient pollinators than bees, according to Max Anderson et al., in PlosOne (2023), although, of course, it’s not a competition. The large variety of flowers and fruits in our environment are a gift from pollinators and they themselves are food for birds, bats, frogs, and lizards. Even in urban settings, small potted plants and green spaces with flowering weeds give these spirited designer bugs a chance to thrive and us a chance to marvel at their gentle magnificence.

The sleight of wings: Moths and butterflies have wing patterns and colours that use optics to fool or warn predators. Cryptic browns and creams, like in (1) geometer moths (Geometridae family), (2) Chiasmia spp. or in (3) dot underwing moths (Eudocima materna), make moths virtually invisible at rest. Most predators of moths and butterflies have very poor visual acuity and are much better at detecting movement.  
Warning signs: In butterflies like the white orange tip (Ixias marianne), bright colours are a warning sign of toxins or bad taste, and they train predators to stay away. This type of honest warning or signalling is known as aposematic colouration. Escaping bats or tussles with spiderwebs can cause damage to their wings, and yet lepidopterans live to see another day due to the structure of their wings. Sometimes, butterflies lose the scales from their wings if they brush against something. Swallowtails can even lose their long wingtails in a struggle with a predator. But if the critical parts of their wings remain, they can still fly, escape, and survive.
Children of the con: Some butterflies use mimicry to survive. For instance, females of the (2) danaid eggfly (Hypolimnas misippus) and (4) common mormon (Papilio polytes) butterfly, mimic the patterns of toxic butterflies (aposematically coloured) (1) plain tiger (Danaus chrysippus) and (3) crimson rose (Pachliopta hector), respectively. These cons are examples of Batesian mimicry. Once a predator eats something bad, they will avoid anything that looks similar — once “bitter”, twice shy. Another form of mimicry is Mullerian, where toxic butterflies of different species look approximately alike, for example, the plain and common tiger (Danaus genutia, not shown) butterflies. Predators learn to avoid all of them. Birds learn through experience, while other predators, like frogs, may have an innate tendency to avoid bright food, perhaps because they too, signal their predators in this way. 
Most patterns are formed for sexual selection or camouflage, with eyespots like the one in Spirama spp., believed to startle predators or keep them away. They are commonly seen in moths and butterflies with different colour schemes. We may wonder if the moth knows that its wings have designs that look like staring eyes. However, evolution surely had a clue. The same genes that are activated during the development of facial eyes during the caterpillar’s metamorphosis also get activated in the future wing regions and develop patterns resembling eyes! (Chris D. Jiggins et al., Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 2017).
Where and when do the butterflies get their colours? Humans associate pigments with colours. Our skin and hair colour arises due to the brownish pigment, which we happen to share with butterflies and moths: eumelanin. Eumelanin gives rise to brown or black colouration in lepidopteran patterns and helps regulate body temperature. Being darker helps moths absorb and retain more heat in the day to cope with the colder temperatures of the night. The tawny coster (Acraea terpiscore) gets its orange colour from carotenoids obtained from its diet of Passiflora spp. The orange colour of the plain tiger butterfly comes from special pigments made from an amino acid in its food. These same pigments also create the red colour in the crimson rose butterfly.

Blue is a rare pigment in nature, but the blue tiger (Tirumala limniace) butterfly gets it from a pigment called pterobilin, produced using an amino acid found in proteins called glycine.

When an adult butterfly emerges from its pupa, its pigments and patterns are complete and are determined by its diet when it was a caterpillar. White is a common colour in butterflies and moths, which is due to the fact that their wing scales reflect or scatter all the colours in sunlight evenly. 

What about iridescent blues and greens? These colours arise because of the nanostructure of butterfly wings. If we touch a butterfly wing, the powdery substance left on our fingers is broken scales. Each scale is made of two thin layers of a material called chitin connected by tiny pillars. These layers can have ridges, and stacked on the ridges are thin, flat layers called lamellae, kind of like shelves. When light rays fall on these different layers, they reflect differently and mix and create bright, shiny colours that we call iridescence. The spacing between these microscopic layers produces the main colour of the iridescence, like the green flecks seen in this Sahyadri Paris peacock (Papilio paris) butterfly. Other factors, like the thickness of the layers, also determine the colour of the iridescence.

Look at the same wing from different angles, and the colour can change or disappear! This indicates the colour does not come from pigment but is a result of light interacting with the structure.


About the contributors

Ishita Das

Ishita Das

is a trained neuroscientist who is learning to be a naturalist, sometimes using illustrations as a tool. She hopes to be a writer of the animat.
Rama Aadhithan

Rama Aadhithan

is a visual storyteller, shaped by nature’s lessons, still learning its ways and documenting beauty. Using his skills with the hope to inspire conservation and deepen appreciation for the natural world.
Published: Jun 25, 2025

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