Chaos, bustle, tired bodies. One of the fighters is seriously wounded; exhausted, he lies among his fellow fighters, barely moving. At least someone is looking after him, probably an emergency doctor. He treats the wound with calm, targeted movements on a video It can be seen that the animal ecologist Erik Frank from the University of Würzburg shot the film. Because the scene shows a battlefield, but the fighters were ants.
The video impressively shows the medical abilities that the Matabele ants, which are widespread south of the Sahara, have developed. Like the research team led by Erik Frank in the current one Edition of the specialist journal Nature Communications reported that the animals can recognize infected wounds and treat them very successfully with self-produced antibiotics.
Apparently evolution has once again achieved top performance in this insect species. It was a rather clumsy idea to put the large Matabele ants, up to 2.5 centimeters long, on an unusual and very limited diet: They feed exclusively on termites that are quite capable of defending themselves. Their soldiers defend their people with powerful pincers. During their hunting trips, the ants often suffer injuries that can also become infected.
Only human doctors are similarly successful in wound care
As Frank’s researchers were able to prove in the new publication with the help of Professor Thomas Schmitt from Würzburg, the hydrocarbon profile of the ant shell changes in a very specific way after a wound infection. What the scientists can confirm with chemical analyzes can obviously be diagnosed naturally by the accompanying, uninjured ants – and then treated straight away.
They use their so-called metapleural gland on their chest to produce antimicrobial compounds and proteins and apply them to the inflamed wound. This secretion, consisting of a total of 112 components, appears to be highly effective; it reduces the mortality of injured ants by 90 percent, report the study authors.
“With the exception of humans, I don’t know of any other living being that can carry out such sophisticated medical wound treatment,” says Erik Frank, according to a press release from the University of Würzburg. The new discovery is exciting, says co-author Laurent Keller from the University of Lucerne, because the new results “have medical significance, as the primary pathogen in ant wounds, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, is also one of the main causes of infections in humans.” There is hope that with the support of the ant emergency doctors, new antibiotics could also be developed for humans.