Reflective Saharan Silver Ant Hairs Thermoregulate, Create Bright Color (3 of 3) (IMAGE)
Caption
This image shows reflectance and heating curves of hairy workers and shaved workers of C. bombycina. (a) Reflectance. TIR is induced on the ant abdomen with an incident light at 50° and azimuth 0. Reflectance is about 10-fold higher in the presence of hairs, for wavelengths ranging from 425 to 700 nm. (b) Heating curves. Abdomens are exposed for 90 seconds to the light emitted by a solar simulator whose visible spectral intensity is identical to the summer Saharan sun. Difference in excess temperature becomes significant after 45 seconds; after 90 seconds exposure, the difference in excess temperature between both conditions reaches 1.91°C. Unpaired Student t-test (*: p < 0.05, **: p < 0.01, ***: p < 0.001).
Credit
Willot et al.
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