“We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty.” -Maya Angelou
Butterfly wings are inspiring new technology.
When you picture the first whispers of spring, and the vivid colors of flowers and butterflies in your garden, perhaps your mind doesn’t first go to the study of photonics in butterfly wings.
Now, maybe, it will.
As a big fan of biomimicry, I was excited to read this 2024 paper about bio-inspired nanostructures based on the photonic structure of butterfly wings.
It was facilitated by interdisciplinary research and perfectly demonstrates the power of combining fields to bring new insights to tech.
The best part is that this isn’t the only example of new tech taking inspiration from biology, and today I want to talk to you about how you can look to this same source for inspiration as well.
#1: Define the challenge.
It’s hard to imagine how to organically translate what you see on a hike or long drive into a ground-breaking new invention.
If we could all just look at butterfly wings, chameleon skin, anthills, or gecko feet and see new technology, we would not only have a more efficient world, but also one that is more harmonious with the social and environmental forces around us.
But let’s start with the (seemingly) easy part: identify the challenge.
What criteria does a potential solution need to meet?
#2: Discover nature’s strategies.
The number of natural adaptations and weird but cool talents out in the kingdom of plants and animals (let alone fungi, archaea, bacteria, and protists) is daunting.
How can one begin to whittle it down?
Align your constraints.
If you are trying to create a new material that can be used in tropical climates to naturally cool indoor spaces, look to species that live in tropical climates, and research how they keep cool.
Similarly, if you are interested in keeping warm, why not research a species that lives in the Arctic?
And if you are interested in understanding how to synthesize materials that can manipulate light, look at butterfly wings!
Don’t narrow it down at first, but think in terms of traits- species that live in particular climates, species that can effectively digest toxins, species that hunt with a particular technique, and so on.
Once you have honed in on some key inspirational figures in your niche of nature, go deeper. Distinguish their strategies, and think about how these approaches would carry over into your own work.
#3: Abstract the mechanisms.
This step is where you shift from biology to design by uncovering how the biological system works.
Don’t just describe what the butterfly does — ask what principle makes it work.
Focus on function, structure, and interaction with the environment.
In the case of the Morpho butterfly: The shimmering blue of its wings isn’t from pigment but from nanoscale structures that reflect specific wavelengths of light through interference. These microscopic ridges amplify or dampen certain light waves depending on the viewing angle or environmental conditions.
Abstracting that, we can say the mechanisms at play are:
- Responsive color change through microstructure manipulation, not chemical change
- Use of light interference to encode or reveal information
- Passive sensing (no energy input required)
#4: Translate into a design idea.
Now take that principle and apply it to a problem you care about. This is where the “bio” becomes the blueprint for your invention. You’re not copying nature—you’re adapting its logic.
With the Morpho butterfly, researchers studied how its wing structures reflect specific wavelengths of light without using pigment, relying instead on nanoscale ridges that manipulate light through interference.
The key is not to recreate the butterfly’s wing exactly, but to borrow its logic.
Ask yourself: how could I achieve a similar effect using modern tools like 3D printing or thin-film layering?
What problem in my domain could benefit from a responsive, low-energy, visually communicative surface?
Begin with a rough sketch, a simple material test, or even a thought experiment.
The most important part is taking that natural strategy and reshaping it into something new, useful, and rooted in elegant efficiency—just like nature intended.
Thought To Action
- Start a “Future Self” Journal: Write one page from the perspective of your dream self—what are you building, learning, wearing, prioritizing? Use this to guide daily decisions.
- Identify Your Personal Design Criteria: What makes a task or project feel deeply worth it to you? Make a mini checklist. Use it to evaluate new commitments before saying yes.
- Create a “Someday Stack” of Ideas: Start a list of odd, impractical, or ambitious project ideas that you don’t have time for yet. This becomes your personal innovation vault.
- Study Someone Whose Job Didn’t Exist 20 Years Ago: Look up someone in a role like climate designer, circularity strategist, or biofabrication artist—and reverse engineer how they got there.
- Fuel Up With Fiction That Thinks Ahead: Read a sci-fi or speculative fiction book this month. Start with something weird. It will stretch your imagination more than any TED Talk ever could.
Sources
The Biomimicry Institute. (n.d.). Home. Retrieved July 13, 2025, from https://biomimicry.org/
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