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Paramedic Matabele ants show organized healthcare and care for injured group members
I'm always looking for new and interesting studies of nonhuman animals (animals), especially those that show unanticipated patterns of behavior. Here's a fascinating story that's worth sharing, because it involves highly social animals who care for one another. We now know that termite-hunting Matabele ants routinely and systematically take care of their injured colleagues. The results of this study are reported in a detailed research essay by Erik Frank and his colleagues published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B called "Wound treatment and selective help in a termite-hunting ant."
The original research paper isn't available online, so here's a brief summary. Numerous popular accounts can be seen here. An excellent review by Christie Wilcox is called "'Paramedic' Ants Are the First to Rescue and Heal Their Wounded Comrades" and is available online.
Dr. Frank and his team report that when ants are injured, they release a pheromone (a chemical signal) that tells other ants that something is wrong. In the current study, the researchers discovered that when injured ants who were suffering from missing legs that were bitten off by termites were carried back to their nest by other ants, nest-mates, called "nurse" ants, routinely took care of the open wounds by intensely grooming and licking them. Their saliva clotted the blood and the treatment increased the survival of ants who received care.
The researchers also learned that injured ants were examined by caregivers who probe them with their antennae, and that the injured individuals were probed more than twice as often as healthy ants. Concerning how this healthcare truly worked for those ants who were treated, the researchers note, "Lack of treatment increased mortality from 10% to 80% within 24 h, most likely due to infections. Wound clotting occurred extraordinarily fast in untreated injured individuals, within 10 min." After treatment, ants were able to reach running speeds displayed by healthy ants even when they were missing one or two legs.
In addition to showing that treatment by grooming and licking had a strongly positive effect on the survival of treated ants, the researchers also discovered that severely injured ants who lost five legs were not rescued. They hypothesized that this had to do with the lack of responsiveness of the injured individuals. A truly fascinating observation is that lightly-injured ants behaved as if they were more injured when they were near nest-mates, and there was differentiated treatment within the nest.
Are these ants compassionate beings?
It's not known what's driving this system of care. Dr. Frank doesn't think it's compassion, but rather a drive to keep their numbers up. He notes, "The behaviour probably doesn’t arise from feelings of compassion...but because the ants’ survival depends upon it. Matabele ants live in small colonies with low birth rates, and their taste for termites means each ant risks mortal injury every day."
Regardless of why the ants do what they do, this study shows that we're not alone in the arena of organized healthcare, with the first good other than human example coming from termite-eating ants. While this might sound rather surprising to some people, when one understands the complex social systems that have evolved in ants, it's really not all that unexpected.
Please stay tuned for more discussions of the fascinating behavior of the other animals with whom we share out magnificent planet. There is so much to learn and I'm sure that numerous "surprises" are forthcoming.
