Photo of army ants in Costa Rica wins international award

Costa Rica’s striking natural beauty looks almost as good on camera as it does in person.

Don’t just take our word for it. London’s Natural History Museum has awarded Daniel Kronauer with a “Wildlife Photographer of the Year” distinction thanks to the above picture of army ants in Costa Rica.

Kronauer won the “Behaviour: Invertebrates” category for the photo taken inches away from the ants’ bivouac, a temporary home made up of their own bodies.

Kronauer, who leads the Laboratory of Social Evolution and Behavior at Rockefeller University in New York City, captured the image at La Selva Biological Station in Sarapiquí.

According to an interview of Kronauer published by Rockefeller University, the researcher was in Costa Rica “using DNA barcoding to determine what species army ants prey upon as well as their interactions with the many arthropods that live inside their colonies.”

Read the Natural History Museum’s story on the image here and Rockefeller University’s story here.