Crab larvae make their eyes invisible with reflectors made of a previously unknown material, an international study with Swiss participation has found. The photonic glass discovered on the eyes of the larvae should serve as inspiration for new materials in the future, they wrote in the study published on Thursday. "Materials in which such photonic glass could be used range from sustainable paints or coatings to more efficient solar panels,” co-author Lukas Schertel of Fribourg University told Swiss news agency Keystone-SDA. In order to develop such new materials by imitating nature, he said it was important to study how these creatures hide. Many oceanic prey animals use transparent bodies to avoid detection, says the report. But conspicuous eye pigments, required for vision, compromise their ability to stay hidden. The larvae's strategy for camouflaging its eye pigments is that they are coated with a glittering film - photonic structures that reflect light according to the...
