Surface Tension and an Ant

Vadim Trunov, the pho­tog­ra­pher of this pic­ture, used a Canon 20D and 100mm F2.8 macro-zoom lens.  He has many more land­scape and wildlife pho­tos but the above pho­tos is prob­a­bly his best work yet.

Two things are in play here: Cohe­sion and Adhe­sion.  Cohe­sion is the bond between the same mol­e­cules, like all water mol­e­cules in this case.  Adhe­sion is the bond between the water mol­e­cules and the ant.  These are the forces that make it pos­si­ble for insects to walk or glide on water and for plants to trans­port water up against gravity.