Move over, Pixar. The ants that animators once morphed into googly-eyed caricatures in films such as A Bug’s Life and Antz just received a meticulously precise anatomical reboot.
Writing today in Nature Methods, an international team of entomologists, accelerator physicists, computer scientists, and biological imaging specialists describe a new 3D atlas of ant morphology.
Dubbed Antscan, the platform features micrometer-resolution reconstructions that lay bare not only the insects’ armored exoskeletons but also their muscles, nerves, digestive tracts, and needle-like stingers poised at the ready.
Those high-resolution images—spanning 792 species across 212 genera and covering the bulk of described ant diversity—are now freely available through an interactive online portal, where anyone can rotate, zoom, and virtually “dissect” the insects from a laptop.
“Antscan is exciting!” says Cameron Currie, an evolutionary biologist at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, who was not involved in the research. “It provides an outstanding resource for comparative work across ants.”
Digital Access to Natural History Collections
It also provides broader access to natural history collections.
No longer must these vast archives of preserved life be confined to drawers and jars in museums scattered around the world, available only to specialists able to visit in person. All these specimens can now be explored digitally by anyone with an internet connection, adding fresh scientific value to museum holdings.
“The more people that access and work with the stuff in our museums, whether it’s physically or digitally, the greater value they add,” says David Blackburn, the curator of herpetology at the Florida Museum of Natural History who, like Currie, was not involved in the research.
Some of those people may be professional myrmecologists (scientists who specialize in the study of ants) and fourmiculture (ant-farming) enthusiasts. But others may be school teachers, video-game designers, tattoo artists, or curious members of the public.
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