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Zombie Ants

This article was published in Scientific American’s former blog network and reflects the views of the author, not necessarily those of Scientific American



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Image of the Week #80, February 18th, 2013:From:Art of the Living Dead by Alex Wild at Compound Eye. Source: Hashime Murayama (1934) Like a game of artistic broken telephone Hashime Murayama's 1934 painting of army ants shows that for scientific illustrators, reference materials matter as much as our observational skill. Inaccurate references lead to illustrations which in turn become new references. In Alex Wild's post Art of the Living Dead on Compound Eye, Wild shows us the distinct features that change in insects after death, and how a skilled illustrator ended up painting zombie army ants - enough to give anyone the shivers.