From the human perspective, things seem to have one appearance, but this changes diametrically when they are subjected to a microscope, this is what happened to this ant under the microscope. We tend to see ants as tiny beings that wander into the most unexpected corners and more as a community force than as solitary individuals.
But perhaps you will never observe one of these insects as you will in one of the images participating in the Nikon contest that rewards the world seen under the microscope. Nikon Small World 2022 took place a few weeks ago and awarded different photographs of the microscopic world. The winner was the leg of a gecko that shines under the lens and has a huge job behind it. However, one of the participating photographs that did not win the contest award is the one captured by the Lithuanian Eugenijus Kavaliauskas.
Ant under the microscope, beyond a science fiction monster
Kavaliauskas is dedicated to wildlife photography and specializes in birds of prey, but for the Small World contest, he decided to take a different view of the forests he constantly visits; this time in the smallest corner. He decided to point his shutter at an ant (put the ant under the microscope) although he said that he did not want to get a boring photograph of an insect, rather he wanted to convey the idea of ‘creation’. “I am always looking for details, shadows, and undiscovered corners. The main goal of photography is to be a discoverer,” he says.
The Lithuanian photographer obtained a very close-up of an ant’s face using an optical microscope with the reflected light technique and an X5 lens magnification. In this way, he managed to capture the ant’s face under the microscope with a level of detail that had not been previously observed.
Although other photographs show ants up close, they usually do not show the level of detail that Kavaliauskas managed to capture. In its image one can admire the red eyes of the ant and the texture of its face that, accompanied by its hairiness that gives the sensation of disparate and sharp teeth, gives it a resemblance to an orc straight out of the fantastic world of J. R. R. Tolkien.
Of course, the Lithuanian photographer’s intention is not to arouse terror towards ants, but rather to awaken curiosity among viewers. A myriad of details in nature await to be discovered, we just need to look in the right direction to change our perspective on the beings that share the planet with us. Although the image of the ant’s face under the microscope received a viral reception on the Internet, Kavaliauskas did not receive the first prize in the contest.
This story was originally published in Spanish in Ecoosfera
