In order to eat, Matabele ants have to fight with their one and only food source: termites. These pre-meal encounters often lead to dangerous injuries from a termite’s fierce mandibles, which can pierce the ants with rapid blows. However, these ants have developed their own saliva-based system to treat their fellow ant’s injuries. New research has found that Matabele ants may even be able to tell if a wound is infected or not and then treat the infected wounds with the antibiotics produced in their saliva. The findings are described in a study published in the journal Nature Communications on December 29, 2023.
[Related: Ants’ brains are surprisingly good at communicating danger to others.]
A necessary and risky meal
Matabele ants are found in regions south of the Sahara desert in Africa. They can be close to one inch long and are one of the largest known ants on Earth. The termites that they rely on for sustenance often inflict life-threatening injuries on the ants. Up to 22 percent of ants can lose one or more of their legs during these encounters over the course of their foraging lives. Injured ants are even sometimes carried back to the nest by their fellow ants for recovery.
According to the team on this study, the main cause of death for the ants is an infection from the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa (P. aeruginosa). The ants have been observed treating wounds with P. aeruginosa more frequently.
Mammals including dogs and bats have molecules in their saliva that potentially have healing properties and are known to lick wounds in an effort to possibly curb the growth of bacteria. The team believes that while other animals have an instinct to lick their wounds, they don’t actually know if they have an infection. However, Matabele ants may have a more discriminating brain and can tell if the wound requires treatment due to specific changes in the chemical profile of an infected wound versus an uninfected…
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