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Thread: Fierce Warrior Ants Are The First Insects Ever Observed to Treat Their Wounded...

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    Fierce Warrior Ants Are The First Insects Ever Observed to Treat Their Wounded...

    This is apparently unique in the insect world. Do we see much of it in the animal world besides humans?

    Fierce Warrior Ants Are The First Insects Ever Observed to Treat Their Wounded Soldiers

    The war goes on. In a series of deadly raids day and night, the African Matabele ant sets out from its bunkered nests to hunt its prey: phalanxes of termite soldiers, assembled in number at feeding sites.

    Many ants don't make it back alive. Others that do carry terrible injuries, with limbs torn off by the termites' powerful jaws. Now, in unique behaviour never before documented in animals, we've observed what happens to these walking wounded: they receive emergency treatment from ant medics.

    It's not the kind of medical assistance you'd want from human trauma surgeons, but it gets the job done.

    Wounded ants receive bouts of intensive licking from their insect carers lasting several minutes at a time for up to an hour, and amazingly this tiny tongue-lashing has an incredible success rate at saving ant lives.

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    ...

    It goes on to explain that seriously injured ants, missing 5 or 6 legs, resist treatment.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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