Butterfly has been developing elaborated hierarchical micro/nano structures with multiple layers and dimensions through natural selection for millions of years. The microstructures are composed of ridge, rib and strut and they act on incident light to present special optical characteristics. 3D inorganic or organic materials templated from butterfly wing scales can not only get multifunctional properties, such as structural color, antireflection, thermalresponse, selective vapor response, directional adhesion and superhydrophobicity and they can be controlled by using wings with different structures or changing the thickness of replica, but also avoid the problem of complex equipment, simple configuration and high cost in the artificial biomimetic process. In this paper, the special optical characteristics of butterfly wing scales templated metal, metal oxide, polymer are summarized. Firstly, the “rib” structures on metal scales have significant surface localized enhancement effect. The Au scales are 10 times more sensitivity than commercial Surface Enhanced Raman Scattering (SERS) substrate but cost only 1/10. Secondly, the micro scales on wings have “light trapping” effect and the honeycomb structured black scales can absorb average 96% of visible light which can be applied to light anode and photocatalysis etc. Finally, butterfly wings endow responsive photonic crystals with special photo characteristics which change with the surrounding environment such as pH, electric field, temperature, etc. This property provides a new way for making simple and sensitivity sensors.