When you see white, you’re actually seeing all the visible colors of light at once.

And when you see black, the object you’re looking at is absorbing light.

White and black aren’t colors; they’re visual experiences.

And a few rare animals can produce the visual experience of super-black.

Most black surfaces are still slightly reflective. But these creatures have developed plumage or cells that absorb nearly all visible light.

The male birds of paradise in Papua New Guinea have super-black feathers that, when examined with an electron microscope, have a three-dimensional structure like miniature bottle brushes.

Their complex surfaces scatter and trap light until it’s absorbed and converted into heat energy.

Even if these feathers are coated in shiny metal, they remain super-black—because it’s their structure, not a pigment, that’s absorbing the light.

Super-black is so dark that features, angles, and textures disappear.

So some birds, butterflies, spiders, and snakes use it as camouflage or to attract mates—making their brightly colored areas appear even more vivid.

Today, scientists may be able to do them one better, creating ultra-black with carbon nanotubes, which would capture 99.995 percent of visible light, and infrared too.

It could be used to camouflage military vehicles or keep stray light from bouncing into telescopes.

Just one more instance of humans taking a visual cue from nature.