{"id":3135,"date":"2013-02-07T21:46:27","date_gmt":"2013-02-08T05:46:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=3135"},"modified":"2013-02-07T21:46:27","modified_gmt":"2013-02-08T05:46:27","slug":"an-ant-under-the-microscope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/?p=3135","title":{"rendered":"An ant under the microscope"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I killed two ants the other day, for Science.  &#8220;Adventures with a Microscope&#8221; instructs you in how to kill a fly so that you can remove its legs and eyes for a close look under the microscope.  No flies were available, so I victimized some ants who kept trying, with mindless persistence, to invade my personal space.  I put them under glass, where one asphyxiated, slowly, as I had no chloroform.  The other escaped and I flicked it into some water, where it drowned.  I felt more than a few twinges of guilt, staring at their huddled corpses, but then decided to examine them under the microscope.<\/p>\n<p>And oh, how glorious!<\/p>\n<p><center><br \/>\n40x (lowest magnification):<br \/>\nThe segmented, slightly blurry object on the right is its antenna.<br \/>\nThe thin filament is (I think) carpet fuzz.<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-2-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"2013-02-02-ant-eye-2\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3136\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-2-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-2-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-2-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-2.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Note the difference in texture between chitin and eye (zoom 100x):<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-3.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-3-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"2013-02-02-ant-eye-3\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3137\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-3-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-3-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-3-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-3.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Zoom 200x:<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-5.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-5-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"2013-02-02-ant-eye-5\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-3139\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-5-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-5-150x112.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-5-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/02\/2013-02-02-ant-eye-5.jpg 1600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><br \/>\n<\/center><br \/>\nThese were all taken with reflected light, since ants don&#8217;t transmit light well.  But are they not beautiful and alien, seen up so close?  We&#8217;ve all heard of the fly&#8217;s multi-faceted eye.  I&#8217;m not sure I realized that the ant&#8217;s is likewise complex and compound. <\/p>\n<p>Wow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I killed two ants the other day, for Science. &#8220;Adventures with a Microscope&#8221; instructs you in how to kill a fly so that you can remove its legs and eyes for a close look under the microscope. No flies were available, so I victimized some ants who kept trying, with mindless persistence, to invade my [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[19,15],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3135"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3135"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3135\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3147,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3135\/revisions\/3147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wkiri.com\/today\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}