Picnic Ready? Invite these 3-D Ants Along

Ants kind of creep me out. But a new exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History, "Farmers, Warriors, Builders: The Hidden Life of Ants," puts the little buggers under the magnifying glass and makes them seem suitable company for my next picnic.

Smithsonian entomologist Matt Kweskin thought it would be fun to bring the ants to life right on your own computer screen. Kweskin chose eight ant species studied in the Smithsonian's AntLab to bring to life by converting them into 3D images.

To create pictures in 3D, identical pictures of the same image must be taken. Each picture must then be converted to different color scales. After overlapping the images, grab your 3D glasses and hide your picnic basket- you’re about to see ants come to life right before your eyes.

Unfortunately, you'll need pair of red and blue 3D glasses to view the images—other versions of 3D glasses won’t work—but we thought they were kind of cool even without the glasses.

-- Written by Lauren Hogan

Beth Py-Lieberman | | READ MORE

Senior editor Beth Py-Lieberman is the author of the The Object at Hand: Intriguing and Inspiring Stories from the Smithsonian Collections.