Psychedelic Ants

The concept of actually courting ants is probably very foreign to you if you’ve ever had them visit your kitchen pantry uninvited. But in Myore, South, India, a scientist named Mohamed Babu choreographed an intimate ant get-together. After his wife showed him how some ants had turned white after drinking spilled milk, Dr. Babu administered a new diet of brightly colored sugar drops. The ants came back and got all technicolor.

By placing the colorful drops on a paraffin base, the drops kept their shape when touched by the ants. As Dr. Babu explains:

I really toiled to get a photo. The crowd always used to become unmanageable within a few minutes and while I managed my camera with my right hand, my left hand was busy removing the extra ants. Once I lost the chance, I could only repeat it the next day. Curiously, the ants preferred light colours, yellow and green. So I put larger drops of yellow and green, and smaller red and blue, to get maximum saturation around all the colours.

While it’s nice to know that ants are fans of the color green, I have no interest in replicating this experiment in my own home. The photos are really beautiful though!

[via Daily Mail UK]