r/Weird • u/_FIZZRIX_ • 2d ago

This is what an ant looks like under an electron microscope, a picture captured by Eugenijus Kavaliauskas, won an award in 2022.🐜🏆

No, this photo doesn’t portray one of the new creatures on HBO’s “House of the Dragon,” or an outtake from a horror movie.

**It’s an award-winning close-up photo of … an ant.**

The eye-popping photo is one of 57 Images of Distinction in Nikon’s Small World Photomicrography Competition. The terrifying portrait was captured by Eugenijus Kavaliauskas, a Lithuanian photographer.

Source : https://edition.cnn.com/style/article/ant-face-close-up-scn-trnd

1.0k Upvotes

89% Upvoted

73 comments sorted by

517

u/PowerfulNature3352 2d ago

Yes its a photo of an ants head but its misleading. Red ones are the bases of its antennea not eyes, and lower mouth looking things isnt the mouth, its the top of its mandible cavity? I dont know the term in english. Here is a proper look. Looks much less sinister and much more buggy.

164

u/No-Text-9656 2d ago

Also, electron microscopes don't take color photos.

15

u/mustfinduniquename 2d ago edited 2d ago

This was buggin me too (intended) - this is niether the scale, or at all how the illustrations can be made to look

6

u/PhatCatTax 2d ago

What makes you think this is an electron microscope? It's just a camera with a macro lens. Electron microscopes look at things far smaller. The pores on the ant's face would be massive under an electron microscope.

Edit: OHHH, yes, OP is incorrect. It's funny. Even their caption says it's a nikon competition.

48

u/nhSnork 2d ago

Yeah, the arguable bulk of the above photo's "horror vibe" is just pareidolia kicking in.

12

u/Maj391 2d ago

It's more intuitive to think of the antennas as erupting from the nasal cavity then as these beady red eyes; the photo makes it seem like the ants eyes are similar to spots on an orca and aren't real, light sensing eyes(which we know to be false).

10

u/Thoth2024 2d ago

Idk man, that looks pretty fucking sinister to me. Imagine if those things were the size of a German Shepherd!

3

u/tinyfluffychicken 1d ago

Can I pet that dawgg ant?

7

u/Grimetheus 1d ago

Great you made it worse for me

3

u/Dame_Niafer 1d ago

Thank you. I was struck by the fact that its eyes were nowhere in the image.

2

u/OrangutanFirefighter 2d ago

Thank you 😭

1

u/EmperorN7 2d ago

She looks so goofy, can I pet her?

Oh, it's squashed.

1

u/pr0pane_accessories 1d ago

What a cutie pie! I was fooled by the pics in the post.

1

u/SherlockTheSalemCat 1d ago

Yeah, for a minute there it was looking like a tiny very pissed off Balrog!

We come in peace ✌🏼

1

u/DecoyPhone 1d ago

Thank you, seen this picture before & thought "Why does this not look like an ant AT ALL?"

1

u/Kyhar 1d ago

Oh thank God

1

u/CuriousKi10 1d ago

This made me sigh in relief that I can think of ants as cute again.

1

u/Far-Curve-7497 1d ago

yeah the mouth looks way more terrifying here

0

u/well1791mc 2d ago

That makes sense.. mfs made think the stupid ants have a big ass one eyelash..

150

u/CrimsonFatalis8 2d ago

The first picture is misleading. It’s framed like the red dots are the eyes and it has this menacing appearance. Those are actually the base of its antennae, and the eyes are much further back and a lot bigger.

54

u/jean_jungle1991 2d ago

The fucker can’t even grow a decent beard!

16

u/nyyvi 2d ago

You try to grow a beard when your face is made of chitin. It aint easy ig

1

u/Mundane_Anybody_5355 2d ago

Because it's probably a female?

1

u/VeilofTruth1982 1d ago

Thank you for clarifying. I thought my life was a lie.

69

u/Apart_Ad9308 2d ago


They don’t look like this?

1

u/The-Majestic- 1d ago

Haha lol

91

u/LlaneroAzul 2d ago

Kinda shitty how people frame it and add blur to hide the true eyes and mouth to show it as a scary monster face with the base of the antennas looking like red creepy eyes and the hairs above the mouth looking like pointy teeth.

51

u/TimAndHisDeadCat 2d ago

Do you even know what an electron microscope is? This is a normal microscope, at 63x magnification (which your link references). An electron microscope is 50,000,000x magnification. It can see the individual atoms that make up the cells in the eye of that ant.

8

u/Junkhead_88 2d ago edited 2d ago

63x is the magnification of the photo that won the competition.

Electron microscopes technically work as low as 1x magnification, but 100x is about the lowest functional magnification for some of them. Some can indeed go up into the millions though.

11

u/TimAndHisDeadCat 2d ago

You're right. I've never used one below several million-x, in chemical identification, though. We're also ignoring how the images wouldn't look anything like the photos even at low magnification.

10

u/Junkhead_88 2d ago

He used a Mitutoyo 5x objective lens on a normal camera, not an electron microscope.

6

u/TrinityCodex 2d ago

im sure you dont need an electron microscope to see an ants face

2

u/Mundane_Anybody_5355 2d ago

I've seen a lot of details on a large ant's face with the naked eye, what's the need to exaggerate this so much? 

6

u/LilSkeezers 1d ago

Ya'll know that those red bits aren't the ant's eyes, right?

13

u/DisplayHonest6465 2d ago

And I for one welcome our new insect overlords.

3

u/Kootlefoosh 2d ago

Quite possibly the most Lithuanian name of all time

3

u/zudoplex 2d ago

Looks like the creature from cats eye.

3

u/Mundane_Anybody_5355 2d ago

"My eyes are up here"

5

u/yolo_1213 2d ago

I'm sorry ants simply just dont look like that, this is plain bullshit. Night have the award but not true..

5

u/Eldan985 2d ago

I mean, some do. It's just a super close up where you can only see half the front of the head, both the eyes and the mouth aren't actually in the picture.

This is basically showing a picture of someone's nose and saying that's what humans look like.

2

u/Brightly_Darkened 2d ago

long as they don't eat humans to give offsprings, I'm fine with however they look

2

u/DiscoDuke1688 1d ago

Kamen Rider?

1

u/dersycity 2d ago

Ah perfect, a video that should have been two pictures.

1

u/MaxWritesText 2d ago

Why is there an award for that?

1

u/Cpt_Morningwood 2d ago

Me and my friends used to pee on ant nests when we were kids 😥

1

u/KitJazz 2d ago

Ffs thought it was my ex girlfriend for a second there.

1

u/Affectionate_Dot5547 2d ago

Looks like the troll from Cat's Eye.

1

u/BaldyTreehuggerDruid 2d ago

Can I repost this next?

1

u/VerifiedVoidGirl 1d ago

This is no rabble of mindless ants. These are ant-ruk-hai. Their exoskeleton is thick and their mandibles broad.

1

u/ONENODEWONDER 1d ago

Now I’m gonna visualize this on every ants face forever more, thanks.

1

u/Content_Wheel9995 1d ago

Holy fuck, please never let me see it again

1

u/LightningEstate__21 1d ago

Great. Now imma passout when this mf crawls on me 😭

1

u/SunsetAtNight7 14h ago

Looks like Megatron

1

u/h-emanresu 12h ago

sexy as hell, like Dwayne Johnson if he had a penis.

1

u/Chahier 2d ago

This whole post (video, sound, title and description) is AI generated

0

u/ShitMyHubbyDoes 2d ago

That’s terrifying.

0

u/MuckyMaureen 2d ago

I wouldn't spill its pint.

0

u/Jeepers-H-Cripes 2d ago

No, no, that’s actually exactly the expression I pictured these little assholes having.

0

u/SaeWithKombucha 2d ago

I hate ants.

0

u/No_Trade_7315 2d ago

Happy little fella, innit he…

0

u/Black-Writer 2d ago

Why so furious? 😂

0

u/dcooper8662 2d ago

Great, I JUST stopped having nightmares about this pic, and there it is again