Post a Comment Print Share on Facebook

horror figure? This is what an ant looks like up close

There are probably thousands, even millions of them surrounding your home right now.

- 22 reads.

horror figure? This is what an ant looks like up close

There are probably thousands, even millions of them surrounding your home right now. Don't panic: we're talking about ants. Researchers from the University of Würzburg and the University of Hong Kong ventured a cautious estimate: a total of around 20 trillion ants are crawling on our earth. “We assume a total biomass of 12 megatons of dry carbon. This equates to 20 percent of human biomass,” the study says.

They are clearly in the majority, but ants don't seem particularly threatening at first. In animated films such as "Antz" or "The Big Crawl" insects are shown as cute little animals. However, a new close-up of an ant makes it clear: the reality is much scarier.

The Japanese camera manufacturer Nikon has been awarding the best microscope images of the year at the "Nikon Small World Competition" since 1975. 2022 is no exception: at the beginning of October, the organizers announced this year's winners of the photo competition.

The impressive image of an embryonic forefoot of a Madagascar day gecko made it into first place. However, a completely different picture caused a lot of discussion on the Internet: a multiple enlargement of an ant visage by Dr. Eugenijus Kavaliauskas from Lithuania.

The picture was honored in the competition as "Image of Distinction". On Twitter, however, the sight made numerous Twitter users shudder. "A frame from a horror movie? nope This is the very real face of an ant. An ant," wrote user Rebekah McKendry on the short message service. "Now you have to think about it all night." Another user, who goes by the username medicarrie, replied, "What the HELL".

The dark hues and head graining make the figure in the photo look like an eerie fantasy creature from The Lord of the Rings. The effect is reinforced by two red dots - which many mistakenly interpret as eyes. In fact, these are "only" the beginnings of the ant antennae.

If you zoomed out a little further so that the eyes are also visible, the sight wouldn't be quite as scary. But "beautiful" or "sweet" would probably be saying a bit too much:

And so you don't have to dream about creepy giant insects tonight, here's an ant detox, powered by Twitter. "Hope it helps!" Writes a user.

Not quite as scary, but all the more strange for that:

Avatar
Your Name
Post a Comment
Characters Left:
Your comment has been forwarded to the administrator for approval.×
Warning! Will constitute a criminal offense, illegal, threatening, offensive, insulting and swearing, derogatory, defamatory, vulgar, pornographic, indecent, personality rights, damaging or similar nature in the nature of all kinds of financial content, legal, criminal and administrative responsibility for the content of the sender member / members are belong.