“What does an ant’s mouth look like?”
Photo: Kumarvijay1708 via DeviantArt. He has quite a collection of nature photographs over there.
Those chompers on the side are called mandibles. The mouth is behind it.
Paul Illsley has posted a number of high magnification portraits of insects and spiders at Tiny Faces in Nature. His collection includes this remarkable portrait of an ant, which gives a little better sense of what’s actually inside an ant’s mouth.
Mouth of an ant (Photo: Paul Illsley)
Does your little Caterpickle want to know more about ants? The ASU School of Life Sciences has an interesting web article explaining the various parts of ant anatomy and how different kinds of ants spend their days.
On a personal note, I had hoped that the end of summer would bring an end to the “Let’s ask Mommyo questions about bugs!” phase.
Apparently not.
Related Links:
- Face-to-face with an Ant (ASU School of Life Sciences)
- Tiny Faces in Nature (Paul Illsley)
- Kumarvijay1708’s page full of nature pictures (Deviant Art)
CATERPICKLES 
2 Responses to ““What does an ant’s mouth look like?””
[…] bug questions are relentless. First, moths and butterflies, then centipedes and millipedes, then ants, then saddleback caterpillars, and now […]
LikeLike
[…] “Ants mouth“, photographed by kumarvijay1708 is marked as CC BY-NC-ND. […]
LikeLike