From the shimmering teal wings of the blue morpho butterfly to the electric orange feet of the red-eyed tree frog, the natural world is home to a wide array of brilliant colours.

And while many of these colours have since been reproduced by humans, used to adorn ourselves and the world around us, there’s one type of natural colour which even the smartest minds have been unable to recreate. Until now.

The so-called ‘structural colour’, which previously only existed on some plants and animals (such as butterflies and hummingbirds) whose surface layers contain special reflective microscopic structures, has been reproduced artificially using new, cutting-edge technology from researchers at Lifescaped.

Naturally Brilliant Colour: Kew Gardens’ new exhibition showcases the “brightest colour on Earth”