This is a picture of the end of a common ant’s abdomen. It is fascinating that the ant is almost clear on the surface of its body near the end of its abdomen. It gets its coloring from spots that radially surround the long axis fo the abdomen. It is unclear if the spots are part of the surface of the ant, or if we are viewing the internal of the ant.

This is a picture of the legs of the ant. One can clearly view the joints of the ant, as they are slightly shaded darker than the rest of the legs. From this image, we can see small chunks of muscle on the leg; this updates my previous conception that ants have thin stick legs with minimal muscle for mobility.

For this activity, we found a dead ant outside near Lloyd House and Ruddock House at Caltech. This was obtained at 3:15 PM on May 28, 2019. The ant was found by sifting through dry soil and picked up carefully by a sanitized tweezer. It was then transferred to a clean q-tip to brush off dust. Afterwards, slide and a dry slip was placed directly over the ant and taped down before viewing. #caltechbi1