If you happen to be in London, starting July 15 this exhibition at the Natural History Museum looks worth a worth a visit:

Investigate how different animals see the world, and explore your own relationship with colour, through interactive experiences and immersive films.More than 350 specimens feature, from beautiful birds to fossils of the first organisms with eyes. And British artist Liz West has produced a stunning light installation, inspired by Newton’s colour spectrum and blue morpho butterflies in the Museum’s collection.

The BBC gives it a strong review here:

A new exhibition exploring the relationship between colour and vision in the natural world is opening at the Natural History Museum.

Intense and vibrant natural colours will be displayed in specimens and photographs of insects, animals and plants. At the heart of the exhibition – Colour and Vision, which opens on 15 July – is the question of how we perceive colour.

“The message we hope people will take away from the exhibition is that colour and vision are inextricably interwoven in evolution,” says researcher Greg Edgecombe.

The vibrant hues found on the wings and feathers of some birds and insects can be explained by two different types of colour, says Mr Edgecombe – structural colour and pigment.

“Structural colour is produced by light interacting with microscopic structures on surfaces,” he says.

“This sort of colour is on some bird feathers and [the] metallic surface of beetles. ”

Exhibits, such as the beetles below, have retained their colour even after decades of preservation, because structural colour lasts much longer than pigment.

Pigment

Pigments, found in hair and skin colour, are a group of different compounds that absorb light, says Edgecombe.

“Different pigments absorb different wavelengths of light and reflect other wavelengths – this affects what colour we are seeing,” he says.

Sometimes colour is created by the combination of pigment and structural colour…

Read the whole article here.