Ants copulating

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Yawns
Posts: 400
Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 9:18 am
Location: Benavente, Portugal

Ants copulating

Post by Yawns »

Natural Light (no flashes) Oly 60mm macro + Kenko #5

Now this is my lucky day ... I was busy looking at a spider when this landed right before my eyes...

copulating ants, queen and male ( I presume)

... (note they engage in the air during the nuptial flight... check wiki for more info https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuptial_flight

Imageexp2 crop MA220848 by antonio caseiro, on Flickr
Last edited by Yawns on Tue Mar 24, 2020 6:35 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Troels
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Location: Denmark, Engesvang
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Post by Troels »

Very nice and interesting!
I would suppose it was a rare picture.
But what do I know? When so many clever people walk around with potent cameras, the rare can eventually become common.
But I have personally never seen anything like this.
Troels Holm, biologist (retired), environmentalist, amateur photographer.
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Yawns
Posts: 400
Joined: Sun Dec 20, 2015 9:18 am
Location: Benavente, Portugal

Post by Yawns »

I was amazed when I realized what it was ...

This literally "fell" from the sky in front of me and at first I thought it was a bug in difficulty, but when I saw the spots on the wings I soon realized that they were ants ... here I have seen several "nuptial flights" and now and then the apartment walls are full of failed males `waiting to die for 2-3 days ... but I never saw a queen, much less the act of fertilization ...

I was only able to take 4 photos for 1 minute and a half (reading the time on the exif of the photos) .. then I changed the camera settings and tried to shade the scene with my cap ... and when I pointed the lens again the male was already gone ...
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MarkSturtevant
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Joined: Sat Nov 21, 2015 6:52 pm
Location: Michigan, U.S.A.
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Post by MarkSturtevant »

Very nice! I have never seen this either. I think the copulation is pretty brief, so you were indeed fortunate to catch the moment with the camera.
Mark Sturtevant
Dept. of Still Waters

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