Ants are the only animals besides humans that perform life-saving surgeries

Saving lives with careful intervention is often seen as a trait unique to humans. Yet research suggests that some ants may operate their own version of medical support.

A peer-reviewed study published in the science journal, Current Biology, highlights how Florida carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus) handle severe wounds among their nestmates.

In these ants, injuries to legs sometimes call for amputation or cleaning, depending on the severity. These amputations, in turn, save the life of the ant. It’s an amazing discovery, to say the least.

Ants and life-saving amputations

According to Erik Frank from the University of Würzburg, decisions about how to treat a damaged limb appear to hinge on the potential risk of infection and the amount of muscle tissue in the injured area.

Scientists examining Florida carpenter ants discovered that the insects use a striking combination of wound cleaning and limb removal.

“When we’re talking about amputation behavior, this is literally the only case in which a sophisticated and systematic amputation of an individual by another member of its species occurs in the animal Kingdom,” says first author Erik Frank.

In a separate paper published in 2023, a different ant species, Megaponera analis, was shown to rely on a special gland to release antimicrobial compounds during treatment.

Florida carpenter ants, lacking this specialized gland, apply purely mechanical means. They use their mouthparts for cleaning, and in certain cases, follow up by removing the entire limb.

Observations revealed that the ants rely on a systematic evaluation of each wound, suggesting they can detect when amputation is more likely to offer a better outcome than cleaning alone.

Wound type determines the ants’ actions

In the study, femur injuries were consistently handled with initial cleaning before the leg was removed, whereas tibia injuries received only cleaning.

“Femur injuries, where they always amputated the leg, had a success rate around 90% or 95%. And for the tibia, where they did not amputate, it still achieved a survival rate of about 75%,” says Frank.

Such careful attention led to much higher survival than in ants left untreated.

Leg anatomy appears to explain this difference. Muscle tissue within the femur may become compromised if left intact, while the tibia contains less muscle and plays a smaller role in moving blood through the leg.

“Thus, because they are unable to cut the leg sufficiently quickly to prevent the spread of harmful bacteria, ants try to limit the probability of lethal infection by spending more time cleaning the tibia wound,” explains senior author and evolutionary biologist Laurent Keller of the University of Lausanne.

Understanding Florida carpenter ants – the basics

Camponotus floridanus, better known as the Florida carpenter ant, is one of the most common ant species in Florida. These ants are big, bold, and easy to spot thanks to their reddish-brown bodies and darker heads and abdomens.

Unlike the typical “carpenter” ants that chew through wood to build nests, Florida carpenter ants prefer to move into existing cavities, like tree hollows, rotting wood, or even wall voids in homes.

They’re not shy either – on warm evenings, especially in spring and summer, you might catch them foraging in long trails, searching for sugary snacks or protein-rich morsels.

What makes C. floridanus especially interesting is their complex social structure and communication skills. These ants use chemical signals called pheromones to coordinate everything from food collection to defense.

They live in colonies with thousands of individuals, and every ant has a specific job – some guard the nest, others care for young, and many act as tireless foragers.

Scientists actually study them to better understand social behavior and aging, since these ants can live for years and show unique patterns of brain activity.

Ant society and amputations

Ants operating as medics raises questions about how a social insect develops such organized responses.

“The fact that the ants are able to diagnose a wound, see if it’s infected or sterile, and treat it accordingly over long periods of time by other individuals – the only medical system that can rival that would be the human one,” Frank says.

These behaviors show a surprising ability to reduce deaths from infected limbs.

Another unexpected twist is that these responses seem to appear without learned training. “It’s really all innate behavior,” says Keller.

Since ants often rely on age-based division of labor, the individuals performing these treatments may have an inborn skill set that emerges at the right stage in their life cycle.

What happens next?

Researchers are now exploring the prevalence of similar amputation strategies in other Camponotus species.

They hope to learn whether this practice is unique to Florida carpenter ants or if others without antimicrobial glands share the same approach.

“When you look at the videos where you have the ant presenting the injured leg and letting the other one bite it off completely voluntarily, and then present the newly made wound so another one can finish the cleaning process – this level of innate cooperation, to me, is quite striking,” says Frank.

This work also raises questions about pain perception in ants, since the injured insect remains conscious throughout the limb removal.

To sum it all up, this incredible research hints at complex interactions that make ant societies a remarkable source of curiosity.

Understanding the nuances of these responses could shed light on how all insects, not just ants, balance communal well-being with individual costs.

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The study is published in the journal Current Biology.

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