Ants: Who looks after the injured in a colony?

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• Hacker News
• we need to mimmick this behaviour in a drone swarm, as well as the reverse, bringing a replacement and reattaching.
  by rolph
• Fascinating stuff, I wonder if nature is reusing the "care" neuro-circuitry or if it's some other mechanism. Brood care and fellow care seem to be related by that thread. Would love to see those ants fMRIs at each stage.
  by khalic
• Isn't fMRI resolution similar in size to 1 ant?
  by card_zero
• And the injured ant just sits there and takes it, probably in pain, because I'm guessing it also knows that it's best for the colony. Fascinating.
  by benjaminard
• I am doubtful that ants feel conscious pain.
  by SoftTalker
• I wonder if Bees also show similar behavior
  by robotnikman
• Fascinating. Hidden on the bottom of the article seems to be a video [1] showcasing how they track each ant out of the six colonies of 110 each.

  I'd like to read the paper to skim over the methodology but it's not open-access :(

  [1] https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/fileadmin/uniwue/2026/0702Ameis...

  by ggcr
• Related video? "Cordyceps: attack of the killer fungi - Planet Earth Attenborough BBC wildlife" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XuKjBIBBAL8 (2008)
  by HelloUsername
• If you're interested in ants (and even if you're not) I highly recommend the book Journey to the Ants by Bert Hölldobler and Edward O. Wilson.
  by merryocha
• Never heard of that book, thanks for the recommendation. I always found Mark Moffetts talks/interviews/books interesting https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60-iFyfjRo0
  by yuppiepuppie
• That is super cool. Unfortunately I cannot access the original article to see the methodology, but they mention using a system that can track individual ants in a colony of ~100.

  I wonder what kind of biometrics allow that. The ants do not seem to be tagged individually in the linked video: https://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/fileadmin/uniwue/2026/0702Ameis...

  Not to be too speciesist, but the ants kind of all look the same to me.

  by mallomarmeasle
• I was wondering about the same thing. From the OP:

  "... the team examined six colonies, each comprising 110 ants .... Using a fully automated tracking system, the researchers were able to precisely monitor the movements and hundreds of thousands of interactions of each ant, as well as their wound care, over a period of weeks."

  I wonder about the background of that software - how does it work, who developed it, how much does it cost, how much data does it output? It's applications are profound, including for human privacy, but I think I already knew about its use there.

  by mmooss
• Surgery, antimicrobials, farming crops, animal husbandry... humans are late to the game.
  by kdavis
• Yeah, wood ants are particularly prolific in these areas. They are quite amazing creatures.
  by snarf21
• I’m surprised they don’t just eject the injured worker from the colony. I wonder if there are specific tasks the amputated ant then goes on to do, or if they resume their former duties at a lower speed.
  by afavour
• That could imply that maybe ants have some sort of disability benefits for those who have lost limbs.
  by deadbabe
• I'm going to hazard a speculative answer with poor evidence: love.

  The ants love one another, as shown by their child-rearing, grooming, playing, the "antennating" mentioned in the article, collective defense, and deliberate handling of their dead.

  We don't understand their language, but I have a certain faith that ants experience a very similar kinship for their sisters as we. If they were strictly-rational robots then why would they show these behaviors?

  by wjholden
• > I’m surprised they don’t just eject the injured worker from the colony

  Wonder if this has something to do due with space constraints. If the study was done in a controlled nest, it must be space bounded one way or another. Dynamics might change when in real-world?

  by ggcr
• Some ants isolate themselves when they are close to death, which prevents infectious diseases from wiping out the entire colony. [1]

  I think in this case forcibly ejecting the injured ant could lead to more injuries of otherwise healthy ants.

  [1]: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S096098220...

  by dubbel
• So the colony's "medical staff" are basically the people between jobs who happen to know everyone
  by Ouman
• Just like a medieval barber surgeon.
  by myrmidon
• > The ants carry out prophylactic amputations. This not only protects the colony from infection but also doubles the survival rate of the injured workers.

  To keep everybody around you healthy makes the probability of caching a disease lower for yourself, too.

  Grooming behaviour in primates helps in the same way. And it is so important that it is linked to all kinds of mental rewards.

  To let disease run amok in your own neighborhood it would be very costly.

  by Frieren
• They can look altruistic at the individual level while still being completely aligned with self-preservation at the group level
  by Ouman
• Thank you for saying this. I've been saying this for years. No one listens.
  by mftb