Friday, April 23, 2010

Natural adaptation?

Yesterday evening, I was trying to get a decent macro photograph of one of the lovely blue periwinkle flowers by the side of my house. I was dissatisfied with the results, however. The ground level and angle was difficult for my tripod, so I tried hand-holding the camera.

Although none of the periwinkle pictures were noteworthy, I discovered an interesting thing on the computer screen that I had completely missed at the time of shooting. In the center of the periwinkle bloom was a little red ant.

What's interesting is that if you look closely, you'll see that the ant is facing away from the camera (shy thing). However, there are what look to be two dark eye spots on the abdomen.

I cannot help but wonder whether this might be a natural adaptation to fool a potential predator into thinking that the foraging ant is facing towards it, rather than blithely away.

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