Entomologists Use a Particle Accelerator to Image Ants at Scale

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 needlelike 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 available free of charge 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, Ont., Canada, who was not involved in the research. “It provides…