ANTSTORE World of Ants

[jartok]

Which of these can and can not see red light

Messor barbarus
Pheidole pallidula
Myrmica rubra
lasius niger

[Messorus]

Hello
All Hymenoptera can´t see red light..
Bumble beeses, wasps, honey beeses, ants.... all these can´t see red light, because their eyes aren´t able to get red photons, or somethink like that... For them is red color and light as black for humans.... Ants see photons also by their smaller eyes, ocelli and by that they see position of sun and time, but just forest species of Formica and some other ants(Formica in central Europe) are using it for ,,time". Yes, and Cataglyphis do this too....

[jartok]

oh good i been using red light and it didnt seem to do anything. i just read lasius niger could see it but i wasnt sure

thanks

[Messorus]

They can feel just warm of lighitng
Can you explain, that ants by that are feeling ,,the darkness" ? OMG

[damondeionno]

It's a bit more complicated than that. You know that colour detection in humans is done with cone cells in the retina, right? Use Wiki for a technical explanation. Basically there are proteins that are reconfigured when they receive photons of a specific energy. The temporary reconfiguration causes a signal to be sent to the brain. Each protein only reacts to a certain light energy. The energy of a photon is determined by it's wavelength which is what we call colour. So a photon in the blue part of the spectrum has a higher energy than that in the red. That's why we can use ultraviolet light to kill bacteria and algae, it's also why high amounts of UV can burn our skin.

The eyes of ants, bees and wasps, don't have cones, but they do have similar light reactive proteins. Their visible spectrum is shifted towards the UV. So they have proteins that react to UV, but not the ones that react to red light.

The trouble is that when we talk about red light in an everyday sense, we aren't necessarily talking about light of only one wavelength (or colour). While a light that looks red to us will be mostly made up of red light, there will likely be other colours of light as well, just in smaller quantities. This is particularly true of incandescent bulbs.

Also, when we use a photo gel (like the red acetate) to filter light, there will likely be some other colours of light getting through. If the light was 'pure' then the ants wouldn't be able to see it, but it rarely is, and that is why sometimes ants don't actually respond as we might expect when we use red light. In general red light doesn't disturb them as much because the other colours that they can see are present in much smaller amounts.

[Messorus]

Eyes df insects(omatidia) are compared from a lots ofhexagon ommatidias... So insects see mosaicly... Each specie and caste have different size and amount of ommatidia, for example C. ligniperda queen have 1200, but the male have 1600 ommatidia, as I´ve read. And sun´s ligh is compared from different colours, which all together ale looking like white.... That´s all what I know about

[Zagone]

While on the subject, and one know off-hand a type of store that might keep red plastic film? Transparent preferrably. >__>

[damondeionno]

Zagone

You should look for shops that sell or hire equipment for photography. You can get 'gels' in almost any colour or transparency.

[Zagone]

Thanks!