Ants in Florida perform life-saving surgery on their peers, scientists have discovered. They are only the second animal in the world known to do this — along with humans.
The researchers found that Florida carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus) identify limb wounds on their nestmates, then treat them with either cleaning or amputation.
The team published its findings Tuesday (July 2) in the journal Current Biology.
"When we're talking about amputation behavior, this is the only case in which a sophisticated and systematic amputation of an individual by another member of its species occurs in the animal kingdom," study first author Erik Frank, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Würzburg in Germany, said in a statement.
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