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Ants perform life saving operations — the only animal other than humans known to do so

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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 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," study first author Erik Frank, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Würzburg in Germany, said in a statement.

In 2023, Frank's team discovered that an African ant species, Megaponera analis, can treat infected wounds in their nestmates with an antimicrobial substance produced in their glands. Florida carpenter ants do not have any equivalent glands, so the team wanted to find out how this species handles wounds in members of the colony. 

Specifically, the researchers looked at two types of leg wounds: lacerations on the femur (thigh) and those lower down on the tibia.

Related: 'Supergene' mutation turned ants into parasitic wannabe queens

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