Warrior and carer ants | information.myScience / information / information 2023
Matabele ants are in a position to discover and deal with inflamed wounds of their fellow ants. The paintings performed on the College of Lausanne’s Area of Ecology and Evolution in this African species is the topic of a newsletter in “Nature Communications” and a documentary.
Pugnacious Matabele ants (Megaponera analis) are identified for his or her impressive raids on termites, on which they feed. However they’re no longer the one ones. This species, which is popular within the southern Sahara, additionally supplies the one identified instance (except people) of a dwelling creature the use of ’medication’ to avoid wasting the presen of a fellow creature.
In 2017, Erik Frank, a former postdoctoral fellow within the Area of Ecology and Evolution on the College of Lausanne, now on the College of Würzburg (Germany), found out that those hymenopterans got here to the help in their wounded in fight. Like actual stretcher-bearers, the colleague beetles would repatriate crippled squaddies (virtually 1 / 4 of them reduce the fight with one or two legs lacking) to the nest, after lick their wounds to disinfect them.
In a fresh find out about revealed on December 29, 2023 in Nature Communications, Erik Frank displays this moment that Matabele ants are in a position to resolve when wounds are inflamed, and deal with them accordingly. By way of making use of diverse antimicrobial compounds and proteins secreted via their metapleural gland to wounds, employees let go the mortality of inflamed folks via 90%.
However how do they resolve the order of condition in their injured comrades? Chemical analyses have proven that wound illness is related to explicit adjustments within the profile of cuticular hydrocarbons, most likely enabling conspecifics to diagnose the infectious order of the wounded and follow the correct antimicrobial remedy”, says Erik Frank, first writer of a find out about led via Laurent Keller, former tutor on the College of Lausanne.
In 2020, he signed an autobiography ( learn the scoop ) wherein he recounts his enjoy of dwelling within the Comoé Nationwide Soil in northeast Côte d’Ivoire, and the medical paintings he carried in the market. Entitled Combattre, sauver, soigner. Une histoire de fourmis , the secure is now additionally to be had in patch layout (revealed via CNRS).
The biologist’s discoveries about those astonishing creatures, immediately warriors, saviors and caretakers, also are featured in a up to date documentary produced via Steven Spielberg and narrated via Morgan Freeman.
via Mélanie Affentranger
