Fact Check: Can you tell if a close-up image of honey bee is real or not?

Hyderabad: Several social media users are sharing an image of a colourful honey bee claiming it to be a close-up shot of a real honey bee.

With the advent of AI, it is getting tougher day by day to rule out what’s real and what’s not. The viral image has been shared by a Twitter user with the username Amazing Nature. The bio of this handle claims to “fact check to bring you the best in real genuine nature research.”

Fact Check

NewsMeter found that the claim is false as the viral image is AI-generated.

We performed a simple reverse image search with the viral image and found the same image on the stock photo website of Adobe in an account with the username Mac. On closely analysing his profile, we found that his content consists entirely of digitally created images of animals and other artistic creations.

We also found the same image on another website called Freepik with the caption “Art illustration painting photography cute and adorable insect.”

Lastly, in The Guardian, we found pictures of real honey bees shot by the head of the US Geological Survey Bee Inventory and Monitoring Laboratory in Maryland, Sam Droege, which look very different from the viral image of the bee.

Hence, the viral image of a honey bee is AI-generated.