A magnified photo of an ant’s face has been successfully taken by a photographer and it appears to be a cursed face that came straight out of Hell itself!
A magnified photo of an ant’s face has been successfully taken by a photographer and it appears to be a cursed face that came straight out of Hell itself!
The eery image was captured by Lithuanian photographer Eugenijus Kavaliauskas during the 2022 Nikon Small World Photomicrography Competition that displayed something beyond our photographic expectations. No worries, the devil-chimera-like ant face is actually the normal appearance of an ant, except, it was just magnified five times closer, that’s why it looks straight from a horror movie.
'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,' someone said.
“There are no horrors in nature,” Kavaliauskas said. “I’m always looking for details, shadows, and unseen corners. The main goal of photography is to be a discoverer, I am fascinated by the Creator’s masterpieces and the opportunity to see God’s designs.”
Surprisingly, the ground-breaking photo was not even among the Top 20 pictures in the contest, which intends to showcase nature at the microscopic scale.
Eugenijus Kavaliauskas' magnified shot, on the other hand, was named an image of distinction. Grigorii Timin of the University of Geneva received first place and a $3000 award for an image featuring an embryonic hand of the Madagascar giant day gecko.
“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.
Here are the top 5 images of the competition shown below:
Image: Grigorii Timin
Image: Caleb Dawson
Image: Satu Paavonsalo
Image: Andrew Posselt
Image: Alison Pollack
Truth be told, the demonic ant should have had its spot in the top 20. It's a bummer, but hey at least Kavaliauskas managed to educate us on what an ant’s face looks like under a microscope!
Speaking of ants, did you know that there is a certain species of ants that covers up their nest entrance/exit with their heads? The Phragmotic-headed ants prevent any intruders from entering the ant nest by using their disk-shaped head.
Queens of the Blepharidatta conops, which is another species of ants, also have disk-shaped heads as well, and they appear to synthesize fibrous resins. The resin then functions as a coating, effectively creating a hard dark clump and shaping a disk-like structure on top of their tiny heads. When certain bug predators attempt to invade ant nests, the entrance is quickly barred by the queen's unusual phragmotic disk. Her body has been modified to function as a gate to the brood chamber.