Polarized Fire Ant! 🐜

Aug 22, 2018 • 12:05 PM UTC

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Mitali

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Hello foldscopers!!
While studying today I spotted something I’ve been looking for since a very long time – a living insect!
I have a test to write tomorrow but I just couldn’t stop thinking about how this ant would look in cross polars…I ran to grab my foldscope and caught the ant.
Since I observed the leg muscles in the pseudoscorpion I’ve been dying to image a live insect to take a look at whether muscles show change in birefringence as they contract and relax!
I haven’t really been able to capture a satisfactory video but thought I’d share it anyway since I hardly get any time to foldscope these days ( and I’m hella cruious to get your views on what that green thing is )
If you see the leg muscles..there not much of a difference there..they are birefringent but no different colours spotted there BUT if you look the head you will see a burst of colours!! Especially this bright green region at the sides of the head. I really wonder what this region is..just a muscle oriented differently? poison glands? what is it???? Need to read more about fire ants! Let’s do it together! 🙂 Any entomolgists here?