Ant

The ant is the first insect that we looked at under the Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM). We found the ant outside and captured him in a petri dish, in which we then brought him into the lab. In the lab the ant made the ultimate sacrifice for science to enable us to view him under the SEM. He needed to be dried out in order for us to view him because water would allow for the ant to become charged. If the ant is charged with the electron beam it will have a negative charge and therefore the negatively charged electrons on the ant will repel the incoming electron beam. After drying him out we could place him on a piece of carbon tape and examine him under the SEM. Below is a video of us analyzing the ant.

We decided to analyze the head of the ant and some of its main body and legs. We thought this was the most interesting spot to analyze. We were hoping to maybe see different elements on its legs from walking or around its mouth from eating. Below is the image that we analyzed. 

We found a few interesting elements while examining the ant. The first map shows the elements we found without the actual image of the ant. This means that the outline that is visible in the first map is created by the different elements by highlighting the body parts of the ant. The second map is with the image included. This means that we put a layer of the image over the map so that we have a clearer view of what elements are apart of a certain section of the ant.

Carbon and Oxygen were removed from the mapping and the spectrum. This is because the tape used to hold the ant is made out of carbon, oxygen is in the adhesive part of the tape. We thought it was interesting when we found chlorine on the ant. Some possible explanation may be that the chlorine was in some water that the ant touched, or in the dirt, and maybe even on the tray from cleaning the tray. Most of the other elements are similar to the elements that we found in our dirt samples. Like Iron, Aluminium, Silicon, and Magnesium for example. The other elements are expected to make up the body composition of the ant, like, Potassium, Sodium, Calcium, Phosphorus, and Sulfur. Below you can see the mass percentage of the different elements of the ant, excluding oxygen and carbon remember.

The most prominent element is Aluminium at 33.42% and is about double the weight percentage of the element that is the second most, which is Calcium at 17.18%. The most is actually Potassium at 14.31%. We found it interesting that Aluminium made up so much of the elements on the ant. Aluminium is found in a lot of places, it's basically everywhere, the amount of travel the ant does might account for this. Below is the Spectrum of the elements found on the ant.

This Spectrum gives us the proof that these elements actually were on the ant. We can tell from whether or not an element is present but seeing if a peak at the elements energy level is visible.

Some of the difficulties we encountered when examining our first biological sample included the sacrificing of the ant (morally). How to kill the ant the most humane way without destroying its body was another challenge. Also, dehydrating the ant enough to prevent our sample from charging due to the water in or on the ant. As a group we decided to say some words and blessing to the ant before we killed him to help ease our morals. The plan was to grab the ant with tweezers and drown it but it was too quick to grab. We ended up slightly smushing the ant because it was about to escape the box that we had contained him in. We put the ant in the oven and dried it out for an hour which ended up not being enough time because the ant was still charging which causes the picture to look like it is pulsating as the ant charges and discharges. Below is a video of the ant appearing to be pulsating as it charges and reflects the SEM electron beam.