There are probably going to be a lot of arthropod images showing up in this topic, because there is a much wider variety of species than anything else, and I was going to say “in this area” but I think that holds true around the world. I’ll mix it up as much as I can but, you know, nature of the beast…
And this one I’ve definitely only photographed once, because I think they’re damn cool and would certainly remember finding one again, but this is not an ant – instead, it is an antlike jumping spider, likely species Peckhamia americana, but even BugGuide.net has so little information on them that it’s not clear that anyone is sure. Some jumping spiders have developed the appearance of ants, and I’m not exactly sure if this is as a defensive measure or offensive; in other words, if it is to avoid predators or to assist them in their own predatory efforts.
While the eyes are a dead giveaway, it’s pretty hard to get this close a look at them in any normal circumstances, so the key feature that you’re looking for is two body segments instead of three: all spiders have a fused head and thorax (cephalothorax,) while ants have very distinct separations between them. Behavior-wise they’re a bit different too, which if I recall correctly is how I identified this one. Ants tend to move at a distinct quick pace and pause infrequently before resuming the same pace, while jumping spiders move slower and with a lot more investigating. Jumping spiders obtain more information from their eyes, while ants primarily use their antennae, and this is noticeable if you watch.
The magnification that was needed for these was quite high, as you’ll see in a moment, and I cheated quite a bit by capturing this specimen and photographing it on a detached flower stem held in a clamp, so I could turn the ‘stage’ as needed and try to keep up with the spider. The clamp was itself nestled in a small bowl of water to prevent the spider from simply making its escape. Nonetheless, even with such control I had an awful lot of images that didn’t pass muster, and more than a few that I only kept because they illustrated certain details. Like the one below.
This is full frame and it’s not terribly sharp, but this was before I had my handy-dandy little paper scales to insert into images, and so this is perched on my knuckle instead. If you were imagining something the size of one of those large black ants, you were way off – I’m fairly certain my friend here is less than half the length of those species and doesn’t top 5mm overall.
These came from 2012, when I was deeply into arthropod photography, largely because they were easy to pursue in the yard and what I was seeing the bulk of, and the images in my Arthropods folders still outclass the counts of any others, though Birds are catching up. Mammals still remains shamefully low – we’ll have to see if these can be boosted a bit…