Institute of
bioorganic chemistry

A team of scientists with the participation of researchers from the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry RAS has revealed the nature of the green pigment in the bush cricket Tettigonia cantans. It turned out that the bush cricket owes its protective coloration to a chromoprotein with a unique fold that contains two chromophores simultaneously. One of them is a yellow carotenoid, and the other is a blue bilin. The mixture of the two colors results in a bright green coloration, practically indistinguishable from grass and allowing the animal to cleverly hide. The work has been published in PNAS. Learn more