The ants are able to diagnose, to some extent, the wounds and treat them accordingly to maximise the survival of the injured, said Dr Erik Frank, from the University of Lausanne and the first author of the research.
Nest mates would begin licking the wound before moving up the injured limb with their mouthparts until they reached the trochanter. The nest mates then proceeded to repeatedly bite the injured leg until it was cut off, the team wrote.
By contrast, no amputations were observed for the nine ants with injuries on their tibia, or lower leg. Instead, these ants received only wound care from their nest mates in the form of licking.
Another set of experiments revealed isolated ants with infected wounds were far more likely to die than those with sterile wounds. However, their survival rates greatly improved if the injured ants were either returned to their colonies.
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