Every now and again one of those accidental, unplanned images turns out to be pretty cool. I was in the midst of photographing a rather uncooperative bullet ant (Paraponera) queen when she ran up on top of a ghetto flash diffuser I’d made out of graph paper. Instead of corralling her back down, I snapped a couple shots of her walking about on the paper, the strobe illuminating her from below.
photo details
Canon EF 100mm f/2.8 macro lens
Canon EOS 7D
ISO 200, f/14, 1/250 sec
at the Jatun Sacha Biological Station, Napo Ecuador
What was the grid size on that graph paper? If that’s a standard quarter-inch grid, she’s pretty huge!
Indeed. This is one of the largest ants in the world.
Your photos are just lovely. I’m presuming you don’t mind me screensavering them?
Thanks, Alan! I don’t mind at all.
Somewhere around here I posted some desktop backgrounds. Oh, here:
http://myrmecos.net/2009/02/22/new-insect-wallpapers/
and here:
http://myrmecos.net/2010/07/27/new-insects-for-your-desktop/
I should probably make some new ones from the Ecuador photos.
Thanks, Alex!
Have you ever been stung by Paraponera? I think I would run away rather try to photograph one of these. XD
I’ve never had the pleasure of being stung by one of these. I think that’s partly luck, and partly because I pay more attention to ants than most people. I can spot them before I get into any trouble.
You say she’s one of the largest ants in the world? She actually looked small to me at first (though I’m far from an expert on ants). I expected a much larger abdomen relative to the rest of her body. Is this just a feature of queens in this species, or was she low on eggs or something?