Answer: Bee pollen basket

What you're looking at

A bee pollen basket, or corbiculum, is a special structure found on the hind legs of honeybees. You'd normally see these on living bees as they buzz between flowers in your garden or local park, collecting nectar and pollen to bring back to their hive. The basket is an essential part of a bee's anatomy that makes their foraging work possible.

When photographed in extreme close-up, the pollen basket becomes a landscape of tiny grains and intricate leg structures. The individual pollen particles have different shapes, sizes, and colours depending on which flowers the bee visited, creating a complex texture that looks nothing like what you'd expect. This magnified view strips away the context your brain needs to recognise it as part of a bee.

Search for tiny spherical or irregular particles packed tightly together, showing natural variation in size and colour.

How players did

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