Biology Certain ants carry out surgical procedures

Ants amputate the limbs of severely injured conspecifics. Saving lives through surgery is therefore not only reserved for humans, as a new study in the journal "Current Biology" shows.

The choice of treatment - amputation or cleaning the wound - is adapted to the type of wound in Florida horse ants (Camponotus floridanus), as the research team led by Laurent Keller, former professor at the University of Lausanne, showed in the study.

In the case of thigh injuries, the scientists observed that the ants always amputated the injured leg. In the case of shin injuries, however, they did not amputate but cleaned the wound with their mandibles.

In both cases, these interventions led to a significantly higher survival rate of the injured animals, as Keller explained to Keystone-SDA. According to the researcher, the type of care seems to be related to the risk of infection.