Matabele Ants Can Diagnose and Treat Infected Wounds, Study Finds

The ants produce a substance with over 50 different components with antimicrobial or wound-healing properties, significantly reducing mortality rates among infected ants.

• Matabele ants can identify and treat infected wounds with antibiotics they produce and secrete, scientists report in a paper published in the journal Nature Communications.
• Matabele ants (Megaponera analis) live in massive colonies throughout sub-Saharan Africa and only eat termites, which often result in grievous injuries to the ants during hunting missions.
• When a wound was infected, the hydrocarbon profile of the ant’s exoskeleton changed—and fellow ants seemed able to pick up on this difference.
• Matabele ants produced a substance from their metapleural glands, which are located on their backs, and applied it to their peers’ infected wounds. That substance contained more than 50 different components with antimicrobial or wound-healing properties.
• When researchers isolated infected ants from their colony of healers, 90 percent of them died within 36 hours. In contrast, mortality was only 22 percent for infected ants that the scientists kept with the colony.

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