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As you will know by now I am highly enthusiastic about animal curiosities and discovering our wonderful natural world. But what I maybe like even more is when animal curiosity is combined with creativity. Take a look at the fantastic photographs below and see if you agree.

A beautiful spectrum of colourful ants

These beautiful pictures are taken by Indian scientist Dr Babu who got the creative insight of creating a spectrum of colourful ants just fuelled by their own thirst for sugar. The idea arose after his wife noticed the abdomen of the ants visiting her kitchen changed from black to white after discovering some of her spilt milk!

An ant showing off its transparent green abdomen

Within minutes after providing green, blue, yellow and red enriched sugar drops, the troop of black kitchen raiders transformed in a rainbow of colours. Although most ants sticked to the colour of their choice, some sipped at the sugar of different coloured drops, giving their abdomen a unique color.

Drops of coloured sugar water can give colour to your garden

Interestingly, while trying to take these fantastic pictures Dr Babu discovered the ants had a preference for some of the colours. Indeed, ants can see different colours, and as one of the only insects, they can also see red. However, although it might be that the ants indeed have a preference for certain colours, a more logical explanation would be that some drops taste better than others due to differences in the colourings flavours.

I hope the next time you discover ants raiding your own kitchen your curiosity will stop you from protecting your precious provisions!

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Written by Jolle Jolles

Jolle Jolles is a zoologist working at the University of Cambridge with a love for natural history and animal behaviour and enjoys fascinating others about our weird and wonderful natural world. Follow Jolle on Twitter or sent him a personal message.

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