Ladybugs, these small insects always carefully hide their wings under brightly colored sheath wings, and only when they take off, we see that they show their wings:

the wings of ladybugs can be said to be a fairly good folding structure, and the long wings are usually well contained in a small space, and the process of unfolding and folding is very convenient.

and engineers actually have similar needs. They also want to design structures that take up little space when folded and are easy to unfold and use. So Yoichi Sato, an aerospace engineer at the University of Tokyo, wants to get some inspiration from ladybugs.

however, how on earth did the ladybug's long wings be folded and unfolded? It is not easy to see this point directly.

so the researchers came up with a simple and crude way: they gave ladybugs a "transplant": the brightly colored, opaque scabbard wings were replaced with transparent artificial versions. This makes it easy to observe the internal structure through it, and then they use high-speed photography to record the spread of the entire wing, while also conducting a fine CT scan of the ladybug.

eventually, they found that ladybug wings actually fold in a complex way that looks like elaborate origami.

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the following dynamic picture is a 3D image of folding wings:

the folding of wings is roughly Z-shaped, but the details are more complicated. If demonstrated with origami, it would be like this:

but as for the transparent "shell" that the researchers transplanted to the ladybug, it was like this.

(really simple and rude method)

this transparent "shell" is made of UV cured resin.

(if you think of phototherapy manicures, yes, they are the same principle. )

I don't know how this ladybug will feel when the window is suddenly opened. _ (: reading "∠) _

Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2131109-ladybirds-transparent-shell-reveals-how-it-folds-its-wings/

if you want to know the original paper, you can read here: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2017/05/09/1620612114