It turns out that humans aren’t the only species to perform life-saving amputations – ants do it too.
Experts watched as a group of Florida carpenter ants took on the arduous process of caring for injured nestmates.
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In other cases, they have been seen cleaning wounds to prevent the spread of deadly infections.
Wound care among ants is not an entirely new phenomenon, but scientists believe it is the first example of a non-human creature performing life-saving amputations.
“The fact that ants are able to diagnose a wound, see if it is infected or sterile, and treat it appropriately over long periods of time by other individuals – the only medical system that can rival that would be humans,” Erik said. . Frank from the University of Würzburg.
“When we talk about amputation behavior, this is literally the only case in the animal kingdom in which a sophisticated and systematic amputation of an individual by another member of its species occurs.”
Frank’s team previously discovered that a species of African ant called megaponera analis could treat infected wounds using a substance from its glands.
What makes Florida carpenter ants so remarkable is that they lack these glands.
Instead, they appear to be using only mechanical means to treat their nestmates.
They go one of two ways – either they clean a wound with their mouth or they clean it after amputating the leg.
Ants even appear to be intelligent enough to assess the type of injury and make informed adjustments about how best to treat it.
And amputations are not a quick task for ants either, taking at least 40 minutes to complete.
The study, published in Current Biology, details two types of leg injuries: lacerations to the femur and the ankle-like tibia.
When dealing with a femur injury, ants always had an initial cleaning of the cut by a nestmate, followed by a nestmate biting the entire leg.
With injuries to the tibia, the ants only cleaned their mouths.
Either way, both solutions increased your survival rate.
Survival rates for femur injuries have improved from less than 40% to between 90 and 95% after amputation.
And survival rates for tibia injuries jumped from 15% to 75% after a cleaning.
“When you watch the videos where the ant presents its injured leg and lets the other bite it completely voluntarily, and then presents the freshly made wound so another can finish the cleaning process – that level of innate cooperation to me is pretty impressive,” Frank added.
Mind-blowing ants
Ants are fascinating creatures with some unique abilities and characteristics.
In fact, there are more than 12,000 different types of ants in the world.
They are also the longest living insect.
While some insects only live a few days, the Pogonomyrmex Owyheei ant can live up to 30 years.
It is also known that ants are one of the strongest creatures compared to their size.
A single ant can lift objects up to 50 times its own weight.
Ants don’t have ears – and some don’t have eyes either.
Instead, they rely on vibrations to detect their surroundings.
Eyeless ants use their antennae to communicate with other ants.
They can also send a chemical signal, warning nestmates of possible danger or to win over a potential lover.
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
