What are Jewel Beetles?
Buprestidae is a family of beetles, commonly referred to as Jewel Beetles due to the iridescent colours! Jewel Beetles are herbivores, which means they only eat plant material. Different species eat different parts of various plants and have different methods of finding a safe place to pupate as a result. All Jewel Beetles have 3 distinct stages of life however, with all of them hatching out of their eggs as larvae before pupating and transforming into their brilliantly colourful adult beetle forms! Larvae of this family are named flatheaded borers, and there are over 15 500 known species of Jewel Beetles!

The two species used in our jewelry are sternocera aequisignata and sternocera ruficornis. Both species are almost identical except s. aequisignata has green legs and antennae, and s. ruficornis has red legs and antennae (see the images at the bottom of the page!) They both reach 30-50mm (1.2-2 inches) in length, their habitat overlaps, and both are consumed in Thailand as a food source; therefore it is impossible for us to differentiate which beetle is which just by their elytra!

What are elytra?
Elytra, sometimes referred to as wing-cases, are the parts of a beetle exoskeleton that cover the wings when not in use. If you've ever seen a "ladybug", you've probably seen it take flight, opening the elytra and spreading its wings before flying off to their next destination. Elytra have to be lightweight to not interfere with the beetle's ability to fly and maneuver, but strong enough to protect these important defense mechanisms! That's one of the reasons we love using them for jewelry, knowing that earrings and such will take a little bit of banging and clashing over time just by the nature of being worn out and about!

How are they so colourful?
Jewel beetles use something called structural colouration to show such vibrant, iridescent colour! The microscopic structure of the exoskeleton actually interferes with the way light is absorbed and reflected to create a different visible colour than may otherwise be reflected. Due to the tiny differences in structure, the beetle appears to be one colour (e.g. green) from one angle but another colour from a different direction (e.g. blue or purple), creating iridescence!

For contrast, this is not the same as pure pigmentation (like the pink of a flamingo) which works because an object is a certain colour, simply absorbing and reflecting light based on wavelengths.

As it is a structure that creates the colour, the shells of these beetles can remain vibrant over a long period of time compared to pigmented colours. Pigments break down over time and an object loses colour as a result, while the structure of beetle shells is hardy and won't lose colour simply by time passing! There are historical garments, such as dresses, from hundreds of years ago that have been embroidered with vibrant gold and silver thread, pigmented fabric, as well as jewel beetle elytra. Over time the garment has faded and tattered, the threads have lost their lustre, but the elytra are still as vibrant as they were originally!