Ants are considerably old as they have been on earth for around 160 million years ago but not as old as cockroaches and termites.
These tiny insects have more than 15,000 classified species.
They live among us everyday and thousands of research have been made for these tiny yet strong – as they can lift objects which are 20 times more than their body weight – insects.
Movies also have been made about these little eco-friendly creatures which portrays their colonies, their role to the environment and their predators.
But, have you ever wonder what these tiny insects really look like other than “Z” or “Princess Bala”?
A Lithuanian wildlife photographer, Eugenijus Kavaliauskas took home a prize in a Nikon photography competition for his remarkable shot of an ant’s face.
He presented his highly magnified ant photo at the 2022 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition, which celebrates the art of microscope photography and allows people to capture details the human eye cannot see.
Kavaliauskas’ submission was one of the 57 selected “Images of Distinction”.
The picture of the ant’s face, magnified five times under a microscope.
The face in the photograph had red eyes and what appeared to be golden fangs.
The image attracted some attention on social media as well, with one user even calling it “horrifying”.
“Image from a horror movie? Nope. That’s the very real face of an ant. An ant. Now you have to think about that all night,” wrote one user while sharing the close-up picture of the ant. “Dragons didn’t disappear into myth they just shrunk,” jokingly said another.
“Now just imagine if they were giANTS!” commented third. “Absolute stunner!” added fourth.
The picture won one Nikon item valued at $35.
Meanwhile, the top place for this year’s photography competition went to an image of the embryonic hand of a Madagascar gecko, taken by Grigorii Timin of the University of Geneva.
“Masterfully blending imaging technology and artistic creativity, Timin utilized high-resolution microscopy and image-stitching to capture this species of Phelsuma grandis day gecko,” Nikon said in a statement.
Nikon has held its photography competition for 48 years. The company received around 1,300 entries to its 2022 competition and announced the winners last week.
I’ve seen them ants in the James Agnes’s movie from the 50’s = THEM.
It scared the snot out of me! I’ve been killing ants since then, every time I see one! I’m 75 so I’ve killed an estimated 100 or more of those aliens!
Joe, did you mean James Arness? That flick scared the bejesus out of me!
I also kill ants on sight.