The Daily Ant

Coding Correspondant Nathan Daly brought to our attention a remarkable photograph that went viral on Twitter last week.

https://twitter.com/SimonNRicketts/status/887804157427675136

Here at The Daily Ant, we applaud all efforts to represent ants in their true, natural glory. There’s only one problem here: This photo, by Eko Adiyanto, is faker than Kellyanne Conway’s alternative facts. The photo is rotated 180° to make it appear as if the ant is lifting the bee in a ridiculous manner, and the ant was almost certainly (although not definitely) coerced into biting the bee, if the ant is even alive at all. Check out the ant’s left foreleg – this unusual, twisted angle is bizarre for a living ant, thought it is possible it could happen naturally:

Faked and staged is not a good look for a picture that the photographer dishonestly passes off as natural (“I still feel very lucky to have experienced and witnessed this phenomenal event”), just like faked and staged wasn’t a good look for an earlier picture that Adiyanto somehow succeeded in getting into the Simthsonian’s list of Finalists for its 2012 photo contest (see honest ant photographer Alex Wild’s epic uncovering of the fraud here). Adiyanto lied about that photo (“it’s a unique and rare moment” = a pile of frass), and he is clearly misleading about this photo as well.

As a final note to journalists like Simon Ricketts (e.g. Colin Fernandez, author of this absurdity): Please confer with an ant expert before aiding and abetting fraudulent formicid photography!