Many biological surface are hydrophobic because of their complicated composition and surface microstructure. Eleven species (four families) of butterflies were selected to study their micro-, nano-structure and super-hydrophobic characteristic by means of Confocal Light Microscopy, Scanning Electron Microscopy and Contact Angle Measurement. The contact an- gles of water droplets on the butterfly wing surface were consistently measured to be about 150 ? and 100 ? with and without the squamas, respectively. The dust on the surface can be easily cleaned by moving spherical droplets when the inclining angle is larger than 3 ?. It can be concluded that the butterfly wing surface possess a super-hydrophobic, water-repellent, self-cleaning, or “Lotus-effect”characteristic. The contact angle measurement of water droplets on the wing surface with and without the squamas showed that the water-repellent characteristic is a consequence of the microstructure of the squamas. Each water droplet (diameter 2 mm) can cover about 700 squamas with a size of 40 m×80 m of each squama. The regular riblets with a width of 1000 nm to 1500 nm are clearly observed on each single squama. Such nanostructure should play a very important role in their super-hydrophobic and self-cleaning characteristic.
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