Ants, like humans, perform surgery on their mates
Ants on duty
Some species of ants use surgery to save the lives of their fellow ants, scientists say Survival rates for ants injured by surgical procedures average up to 95 percent.
Scientists say Scientists have previously observed that some ants use their glands to inject antibiotics into wounds to protect injured mates.
Eric said this is the first time scientists have seen an organism other than humans use medical procedures to heal wounds.
Ants performing surgeries
A new study published in the scientific journal Current Biology has revealed that some species of ants save the lives of their injured partners by amputating an injured limb, such as a leg, to prevent the spread of infection.
Scientists say that surgery like humans has been found for the first time in another organism.
This type of ant, called the “Florida carpenter ant,” is common in the United States.
According to the news agency Reuters, the ants were observed to try to heal the wounds of their injured fellow ants by either cleaning them.
Or constantly cutting off the lost leg from the body.
According to Reuters, the author of the study, Eric Franck, who researches “social wound care” at the University of Würzburg in Germany,
said that he believes that the medical system of these ants is the most advanced among organisms after humans.
While sharing the results of the research on his X account, he wrote that these ants have learned many methods of amputation surgery through evolution.
For example, when these ants were injured when they cut their partner’s leg above the thigh bone,
Ants do surgery
the average chance of survival for such ants reached 95 percent.
The average was only 45 percent when the ants were not operated on. Eric said that when humans cut an organ through surgery, the results are almost the same.
In other cases, he wrote, in the case of injuries below the shin bone, the limb is not amputated, but other methods of healing the wound are tried.
Even in such a case, according to Eric, the average survival rate of such ants reaches 45% to 75%.
Eric said this is the first time scientists have seen medical procedures used to heal wounds in organisms other than humans.
In the past,
Eric’s group had conducted research on termite-hunting ants, which revealed that such ants secrete a secretion from a body gland,
that acts as an antibiotic to protect the wounds of injured partners from bacteria. It does and it greatly reduces the number of deaths in ants.
