Ant Night

We presented the Nano Gigapan ant images at the California Academy of Sciences Nightlife. Nightlife is a evening social event at CAS that happens every Thursday evening. It gives people a chance to explore the museum at night and ask questions. Nano Gigapan set up a table and had the opportunity to present some of our images and talk to people about our work.

Aphaenogaster occidentalis

This Nano Gigapan is of an ant commonly found in Northern California. We found this one in the kitchen. It is the same species as the one below that's holding a fly.

This Nano Gigapan is a head shot of the ant that is composed of 80 pictures. The ant is magnified 500x.

You can see optical images of it on ant web. http://www.antweb.org/description.do?rank=species&name=occidentalis&genus=aphaenogaster&project=calants

View the full image at GigaPan.org

Ant holding a Fly

This is an SEM Nano Gigapan of an ant holding a fly in its mandible. This image came about when we found some ants this morning in the kitchen and decided to take them into work to image. While looking for other cool things to image I also stumbled across a very small fly that was dead on the table (you might not believe me, but the house we're staying at is actually really nice, and at least appears very clean). Lacking another container for putting samples into, we dropped the fly in with the live, albeit confused ants, saying "they probably wont eat it." Seconds after touching the bottom of the container, the ant you see here snatched the fly up and proceeded to hold on to it for not only the commute into the office, but also during a stint in the freezer, a move from the container to the SEM stage, and then while in a vacuum. That is dedication.

The ant and fly are magnified 400x and this image is composed of 288 pictures taken with the SEM.


View the full image at GigaPan.org

Match Heads

This Nano Gigapan shows two match heads side by side, illustrating the difference (as seen under a scanning electron microscope) between a unlit strike anywhere match and one that has been burned. This difference is clear with the naked eye, but can you tell which has been burned looking at it with a different tool? This image is composed of 140 pictures of matches magnified 150x.

View the full image at GigaPan.org

Drift wood & Pygmy forest twig

Here are two gigapans of two different wood samples. Neither of these are quite the bark that someone requested, however, they both look pretty nifty. This first nanogigapan is of a piece of drift wood, the image is made up of 25 pictures taken using a scanning electron microscope. This piece of driftwood was found on the Northern Californian coast. The segment we imaged is of the very center of the wood and you can see this by looking at how the structures seems to radiate from the middle of the gigapan. The driftwood is magnified 300x.

View the full image at GigaPan.org

The second nanogigapan is of a cross section of a twig taken from a pygmy tree in Mendocino. The twig is magnified 250x and you can make out the growth rings in this image.

Rollie Pollie

This is the latest nanogigapan and is an image of a pill bug, or rollie pollie. This view is of the rollie pollie unrolled and on its back (a position that was rather hard to prepare because when faced with premature death the rollie pollie rolls up in to a small ball). Because the specimen was so large, I was only willing to magnify it 200x so that I only had to take 250 images. However, even with relatively small magnification it is a fun image to explore, especially because it is of such a familiar insect.


View the full image at GigaPan.org

NanoGigaPan project works with STAR Participants

The project is currently working with Lisa Adams, a Student Teacher and Researcher (STAR) participant, who is spending the summer at NASA Ames. Adams intends to design five different lesson plans that use Nano Gigapan images to help students more easily grasp and visualize the material. So far we’ve imaged pollen, a pill bug, and a cockroach leg by her request. Hopefully this will help expose school aged children to the world of the small and show them how much is out there that they can’t even see.

Barnacle Gigapan

This barnacle Nano Gigapan is really cool. Take your time, really zoom in and explore this one. The barnacle was found washed up on the back of a crab shell at Mendocino's big river beach. In this Nano Gigapan you can see the crab shell around the base of the barnacle.

This image is composed of 384 pictures taken with a scanning electron microscope, which took me around 5-6 hours to capture. The barnacle is magnified 800x.


View the full image at GigaPan.org

SEM Photo Slide Show

The Latest Nano GigaPant

This ant is from Madagascar, and is named Eutetramorium mocquerysi. The species is notable for having wingless queens that are indistinguishable from workers.

This image is composed of 400 pictures magnified 400x using a scanning electron microscope. The ant was given to us to image by Brian Fisher an entomologist at the California Academy of Sciences.

For some more information, along with optical microscopic images click here.


View the full image at GigaPan.org

More Ant Nano Gigapans!

More Ants are on their way! The Nano Gigapan project has received some ant samples from colonies at the California Academy of Sciences which are in the process of being imaged. Seeing as there are over 30,000 species of ants in the world, we could have a new ant image every day for the next 83 years (funding permitting, but looking at NASA's latest LCROSS mission it does seem like they want to minimize long term funding, apparently by crashing things into celestial bodies). Luckily the Cal Academy only gave us three ant samples to start out with, and luckily they're not unique and highly prized type specimens seeing as how I have large hands and ants are small and breakable.
Here is the first Nano Gigapan of these three samples, which were given to us by Brian Fisher, an entomologist at the Cal Academy. This image is composed of 208 pictures taken with a scanning electron microscope. The ant is magnified 500x.

View the full image at GigaPan.org
This ant is from the species Proceratium MG03 which is thought to be a specialized predator of spider eggs.

And here is another Nano GigaPan of a different ant specimen given to us, this is just a head shot. It is composed of 132 pictures magnified 500x. This ant is from the species Strumigenys vazimba. These ants use their large head muscles to snap their mandibles close at high speed.

View the full image at GigaPan.org

Snow Algae

The Nano GigaPan project is working with Thomas Beer and Nathan Bramall, two scientists at NASA Ames, to take images of algae samples. These scientists are studying different types and species of snow algae. Snow algae is interesting because of its ability to live in extreamly cold environments. We have done five Nano GigaPans for them and they can all be viewed here on the Gigapan website. Bellow is one Nano Gigapan we took of a green snow algae sample (there are both red and green types).


View the full image at GigaPan.org