How Moth Eyes Inspired the Camera Lens

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[Narrator] Biomimicry is learning from

and then emulating nature's best ideas.

Chances are, the camera that you're using

has a lens inspired by moth eyes.

One of the things about lenses is that you

don't want them to reflect a lot of light.

You want them to drink in light

and to hold the light.

A moth has the same issue.

As a night flying creature,

it needs to drink in as much moonlight as it can,

but it doesn't want to have that light shine back.

Because if it does, it creates eyeshine,

which a predator can see.

So it wants its eye to be absolutely black,

and the way it does this is it has these tiny pillars

on the outside of the eye,

and light comes in, bounces around,

but it can't bounce back out.

These have been mimicked on films

that are being put on cameras

to make them anti-reflective.

They're being put on solar cells,

so that a solar cell drinks in the maximum amount

of light without reflecting a whole lot.

All based on a small, common,

but actually pretty cool creature.

The moth.

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