When an ant injures its leg, it sometimes will turn to a buddy who will help out by gnawing the leg off, effectively performing a life-saving limb amputation. That’s according to some new experiments described in the journal Current Biology , which show that ants are the only animal other than humans known to practice amputation as a medical treatment. “Not only can they do this, but they are even able to diagnose the wounds and, depending on the location, adapt the treatment accordingly to maximize the survival chances of the injured,” says Erik Frank , who studies “social wound care” among ants at the University of Würzburg in Germany.
“I find that truly remarkable.” Wound care after battle In the past, his group has studied how termite-hunting ants in the tropics substantially reduce the death rate among injured nestmates by treating their wounds with antibiotic secretions that come from a special gland. But that gland doesn’t exist in a common species known as Florida carpenter ants, or Camponotus floridanus .
This species nests in rotting wood and will fight rivals to defend its home, so Frank wanted to see how these ants would react when confronted with the kind of injuries that come with battle. His team quickly observed that these ants would cut off wounded legs, much like miniature Civil War-era surgeons. “And this really piqued my interest,” he says.
An injured ant will present its leg to a nestmate, who will lick the wound and then move up the.
