[Macro] Red Weaver Ant as Charon

A red weaver ant worker (oecophylla smaragdina) carrying another dead weaver ant. Photo was taken during a group outing with the organisers of MY Challenge 2011.

Chasing around this fella wasn't easy. Apparently she was rushing to wherever she was going with the corpse in her jaws.

Photo was taken using a D60 and a Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 with a macro converter attached. An SB-600 flash was fired to freeze the movement and some editing was done in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.

Charon is a figure in Greek mythology who ferries souls across the rivers Styx and Acheron to the world of the dead.

Related articles

• [Macro] Red Weaver Ants Swarming a Lizard 
• [Macro] Angry Red Weaver Ant 

[Macro] Angry Red Weaver Ant

Red Weaver Ant, originally uploaded by ihsankhairir.

Via Flickr:
Reverse lens macro of a Malaysian weaver ant on an asphalt road surface

Macro shots of the red weaver ant (oecophylla smaragdina) is relatively easy because when they feel threatened, they stay still, lift up their abdomens and open up their pincers. This is part of their effort to look bigger and more threatening, and to scare off predators or competitors.

The only thing I had to worry about was the potential of a swarm of these ants coming to attack me. The red weaver ants bite strongly into your skin or clothes and almost never let go, even if it kills them. So strong are their bites, sometimes when you try to remove them by pulling their bodies, their heads might come off but still attached to your skin.

For this macro shot I did not use a macro lens, but instead I reversed an 18-55mm f/3.5 - 5.6 lens to achieve the magnification and shallow depth of field.

Angry Red Weaver Ant

Red Weaver Ant Profile, originally uploaded by ihsankhairir.

I've always wanted to take a good macro shot of the red weaver ant (Oecophylla smaragdina) but they tend to go around in swarms and attack anyone that comes close. Lack of a good macro lens also deterred me from getting closeup shots of these hotheaded Formicidae... but ever since I tried reverse lens macro and getting such extreme closeup shots I'm having lots of fun with these fierce arboreal ants...

I'm going to look for more of these ants around...

For more information on red weaver ants:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weaver_ant

Injured Ant

For the good part of an hour, I was down on my belly like a lizard, prowling upon six-legged crawlies not to feed upon them, but to immortalize them in photos.

I perchanced upon a large ant with an unusual walking pattern. As if it was helplessly wandering around looking for something, or running away from an unseen predator.

I roleplayed myself into becoming this peculiar ant's predator, pretending that the ant was scurrying away from my predatory eyes (or rather eye, because DSLRs are not stereographic/stereoscopic).

Capturing this oddly wandering ant proved rather difficult, as it was really hard to anticipate its movements due to the unpredictable and random walking pattern.

After almost half a hundred shots, and reviewing them on the computer, I realized why this ant was so oddly peculiar.

It was injured.

I don't know how it happened, but somehow, the ant got a small shard of glass stuck to the tip of its abdomen.

Assuming ants can feel pain, I felt sorry for the six-legged creature much later.

I had a feeling that this ant did not survive the day. For an insect so dependent on the strength of swarms and the support of its colony, there was no way an injured ant could have survived the day.

The ant must be so unlucky to have been pierced by that shard of glass. Who would've thought that a broken piece of glass could hurt something as small as an ant?

-ihsankhairir-

P/S: For another closeup of an ant:
Angry Red Weaver Ant

[Macro] Red Weaver Ants Swarming a Lizard

I took this photo last weekend when I joined a photo outing organized by the folks at MY Challenge 2011.

One of my students, Chien Teng, saw a  swarm of red weaver ants (oecophylla smaragdina) dragging a dead lizard up a tree to their nest. I of course, being some snap happy photo hobbyist fond of shooting these insects (as evidenced by my multiple posts about them) braved through the countless bites by these ants on my arms and legs to take macro shots of them at work. One of the results is the photo above.

I used a Nikkor 35mm f/1.8 lens with a macro converter attached so that I can move the lens closer to the subject, which also means I was very vulnerable to attacks by the same swarm that killed the lizard.

I particularly like this shot because of one detail: One ant was dragging the lizard by the eye.

I look forward to your feedback regarding the photo above. Hope you like it as much as I do :)