Trivia

The brilliant colors in a hummingbird's feather are created by tiny platelets that resemble a pancake filled with air bubbles.

They are called "interference colors," and are much like the shimmering colors seen in a soap bubble or in a drop of oil.

The color-producing phenomenon is called interference and is due to waves of light interacting with each other to produce constructive reinforcement or destructive cancellation of the waves. Interference phenomena produces the colors seen on oil slicks in water or in the colors of bubbles or in the colors seen in thin silicon oxide layers on silicon. The oils and silicon oxides are in themselves colorless but when present as a thin layer (film) on another material produce colors. These colors are referred to as thin film interference colors.