326: Medical Ants

[00:00:03] Speaker A: Welcome to Brain Junk. I'm Amy Barton. [00:00:05] Speaker B: And I'm Trace Kerr. And today is everything you never knew you wanted to know about medical ants. [00:00:13] Speaker A: The thing that immediately popped into my brain is the scene in Gladiator where Russell Crowe's character has fallen asleep, they're being transported and he wakes up with maggots all over his injury and he freaks out. [00:00:26] Speaker B: Yeah. And they're like, no, no, no, no, no, leave them there. They're helping. [00:00:29] Speaker A: Yeah. Because they suddenly all speak the language together. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, you know, it's okay. It's okay. [00:00:37] Speaker A: So tell me about medical ants. Are we going that direction? [00:00:40] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, in a bizarre change of events, we're not. We're talking about ants and leg amputations. But scientists aren't to blame. Well, I mean, they're kind of to blame, but this is going to blow your mind. Okay, okay. So we've talked about scientists kneecapping ants to see if they count their steps. [00:01:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:01:01] Speaker B: Turns out that they do count their steps. That's in episode 71. I'll have that in the show. Notes. Ants on stilts. [00:01:08] Speaker A: It's still one of my all time favorites. [00:01:10] Speaker B: Same. It's so good. It's horrible. It's fascinating. Well, today we're going to talk about tiny ant doctors and their treatment for infection and injury. [00:01:20] Speaker A: Does the colony have that too? [00:01:23] Speaker B: Well, let me just tell. [00:01:25] Speaker A: I just think ants are endlessly just are more and more the more we learn about them. So amazing. [00:01:31] Speaker B: 100. And this one is, is no exception. So this paper, July 2024 in Current Biology, Wound Dependent Leg Amputations to Combat Infections in an Ant Society. [00:01:44] Speaker A: That was a lot of title. [00:01:49] Speaker B: It is a lot of title. Okay, so we know that primates, you know, like chimpanzees, orangutans, they sometimes use chewed up plants for wounds, like if they have an open wound. [00:02:00] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:02:01] Speaker B: There was an article about an orangutan that had like this open wound on its face and it chewed up plants and it was packing them. [00:02:07] Speaker A: They make a little poultice. [00:02:09] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Or they will eat plants that are not part of their normal diet to help with things like pain and indigestion. [00:02:16] Speaker A: Yes. That is amazing. [00:02:18] Speaker B: I, I agree. And it turns out that ants, some ants treat wounds not with plants, but they have like natural antimicrobial secretions. So say you had, you know, an ant has a cut, another one would lick them. Kind of like ant Neosporin. [00:02:32] Speaker A: Yes. [00:02:33] Speaker B: And that, that would help. Right. Well, other ants like Camponotus floridanus, AKA the Florida carpenter Ant. [00:02:42] Speaker A: Thank you. That's easier. [00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah, they don't. Yeah, I know. I'm like Florida carpenter ant better. They don't have Neosporin. Spit. [00:02:49] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:50] Speaker B: So they chop off each other's legs to fight infections. [00:02:55] Speaker A: So they're like, I'm sorry, we're gonna go ahead and put a tourniquet on this one and you're gonna lose it, but you'll survive. [00:03:01] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. It's just as bad as it sounds. [00:03:06] Speaker A: What do you think an ant with an amputated leg looks like when it walks? [00:03:10] Speaker B: Well, okay, so I saw a video, and they look sad. [00:03:17] Speaker A: It amazes me just that culturally they have figured that out and they value the life of that ant. They don't just send it away to die. They fix that. [00:03:27] Speaker B: Yeah, they do. Yeah. So how did they study this? [00:03:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. [00:03:35] Speaker B: So this is where the scientists. They get their bad rap again. They would cut the legs of ants. [00:03:40] Speaker A: They would wound them. [00:03:41] Speaker B: They would wound them. Yes. So they get an ant and they're either going to cut the lower leg, which is the tibia area, or the femur, which is the upper leg. And then they would infect them with bacteria. [00:03:57] Speaker A: If this world isn't what we think it is, and we reach a point in history where there's a clock running one way like an hourglass, and then they flip it and they're like, okay, now the stuff you did to the bugs and animals, now they're the apex things and buckle up. They get to do all that to you. [00:04:19] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:04:20] Speaker A: Be bumpy. [00:04:21] Speaker B: It's going to be. It's going to be so bad. [00:04:24] Speaker A: Let's hope that's not the reality. [00:04:26] Speaker B: Yeah. So from their results section of the paper, they said while studying the response of nest mates towards injured individuals in the ant, the Florida. The Florida carpenter ant, we discovered that injuring the leg of an otherwise healthy worker often led to the amputation of the affected limb by nest mates. [00:04:46] Speaker A: Wow. [00:04:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Controlled experiments revealed that the response of workers depended on the location of the injury. [00:04:53] Speaker A: Oh, so they would assess viability like a paramedic. [00:04:56] Speaker B: Yes. [00:04:57] Speaker A: Wow. [00:04:58] Speaker B: So. So that's the cool thing. Okay. So if the ant has an injury on the lower leg. So for us, that would be like from your kneecap down. [00:05:07] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:05:07] Speaker B: Then more often than not, an ant would lick the wound clean and leave the leg. [00:05:13] Speaker A: Okay. Because, like, that could heal. [00:05:15] Speaker B: Yes. If the wound is on the upper leg, then the ants would lick the wound and there's video and they slowly move up the leg. They're like, oh, here's the wound. I'M coming up your thigh. And they work up their way to what's called the tro trocanter. That's, like, where the leg attaches to the body, like the ant hip. And then they just start biting. [00:05:37] Speaker A: Oh, geez. [00:05:38] Speaker B: And. And they. And they munch it right off. [00:05:41] Speaker A: Oh, wow. [00:05:43] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:05:44] Speaker A: Ooh. This is like. I'm gonna count to three, and then they start on two. [00:05:49] Speaker B: Yeah. And then you just start chomping. 76% of the time, if there was an infected injury on that upper leg, it ended in amputation. [00:05:58] Speaker A: Oh, boy. [00:05:59] Speaker B: Okay. And so you asked, what does it look like? Well, the video. And I'll have this in show notes. The video. The. It's like the. So they got six legs on each side. It's the rear leg that's been injured. And you see that they've already removed the lower half of the leg. That's gone. Scientists. I blame you. And then the ant is slowly, you know, they've got, like, these little pinchers in the front, and she's working her way up, and she's working her way up, and she gets to that connection point and just bites it off. And the other aunt stands there and takes it. [00:06:35] Speaker A: Wow. Really? [00:06:36] Speaker B: Yep. And they remove the leg, and she's just standing there like, ow. [00:06:41] Speaker A: Oh, my word. I wonder what the central nervous system of an ant is like. Like their receptors there. [00:06:48] Speaker B: I don't. I don't know. I mean, she didn't seem like she was having fun. I know. They did not address pain scales. They did not say, Is this a 1 to a 10 when they were maiming these ants. Yeah. So we can't entirely let scientists off the hook on this one, because, of course, there's more than one test group. Right. So you've got ants that are isolated from the group that are cut but not infected. Isolated ants that were cut and infected and left to their own devices. You have ants that are cut and ants that are cut and infected and put back in with Gen Pop to see what will happen. Okay. [00:07:32] Speaker A: Ant is the new black. [00:07:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And then the ones that are in isolation, the scientists performed amputations. [00:07:42] Speaker A: Did that have different ending results or is it? [00:07:45] Speaker B: It didn't. [00:07:46] Speaker A: Wow. [00:07:47] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:07:48] Speaker A: So the licking is purely just for emotional support. [00:07:52] Speaker B: Yep. Amputations improved survival by a huge amount in every group but the infected and left alone. How's that for a horror movie? Infected and left alone. Chances of survival for everybody else are about 80% or better. [00:08:07] Speaker A: That's amazing. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Isolated ants infected and left alone. We're in the 30% range for survival. [00:08:13] Speaker A: Oh, that's so sad. [00:08:16] Speaker B: I know. [00:08:17] Speaker A: And there's a debate over whether ants can feel pain, but there is evidence that they may be able to. [00:08:23] Speaker B: Oh, well, I mean, it certainly seemed like she was not having a fun time having her leg ripped off, but. Okay. So to circle back to how you talked about determining treatment. Yes. It is so interesting that this isn't just instinct to lop off a limb. You know, you don't, you don't have ants going, oop, that one's bleeding from the leg. Rip it off. It is definitely going in and checking and seeing. [00:08:46] Speaker A: Yeah, they're assessing it sounds like. [00:08:48] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Where the injury is. Well, because scientists speculate that because the femur area, that upper leg has more hemolymph. That's. That's where that produced. Which is part of the stuff that helps with fighting an infection, that having the whole leg left to fight infection in a lower leg injury is more beneficial. [00:09:07] Speaker A: Okay, the AI overview. When I asked if ants can feel pain, it's. [00:09:13] Speaker B: Oh, no. [00:09:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Thank you, AI. There are some good things happening here. They may feel irritation or a sense or sense damage, but they can't suffer because they don't have emotions. Wow. Okay. [00:09:26] Speaker B: Okay. That almost feels like the way they tell you getting an IUD doesn't hurt, it's just going to be a pinch. Do. Really? No, really. [00:09:34] Speaker A: I do not know what sources AI pulled from. So let's not assume that's fact, everyone. [00:09:41] Speaker B: It's like, you know how you used to blow them up with a magnifying glass when you were a child? They were fine. That's a lie. That's probably a lie. [00:09:49] Speaker A: Let's not assume that everyone. [00:09:52] Speaker B: Yeah. So then also they had some extra info in the Florida carpenter ants. It didn't matter to them if there was an infection or not. They were not checking for that. It all. The rate of amputation stayed the same. So it's just there's a cut and it's more likely to get infected because, you know, they're wandering around in the dirt and so that would cause more damage. So they just chew off the leg and stop the problem. [00:10:18] Speaker A: Wow. That. That is very direct. Can you imagine, like, if you were the undergrad and you got the place in this lab and you are so excited to be doing research in a lab, and then they're like, we're going to need you to slice some ant legs open all semester long. Get to it. And like, if you had a tender heart. [00:10:43] Speaker B: We need you to sterilize These X acto knives. [00:10:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:48] Speaker B: And go stab ants. [00:10:50] Speaker A: Get to hacking, kid. Wow. [00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah. So I, I had thought initially the scientists are not going to be the ones on my list, and I'm unfortunately. No, they still are. [00:11:02] Speaker A: Yeah. Theoretically. Yeah. That is amazing though. Just the care of the ants is remarkable to me. [00:11:12] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. The fact that it's, it's. It's a diagnosis that they're making and it's. I mean, it's still pretty simple. It's still pretty binary. Cut on lower leg, leave it. Cut on upper leg, take it off. But still you. There's a decision making process that's happening there. [00:11:30] Speaker A: Yeah. And while I can't anthropomorphize. Anthropomorphize that it's probably not a sense of, this is my best buddy. I gotta save him. But just that value of the life of an ant in the colony is interesting. [00:11:44] Speaker B: Yeah. Although don't go too far because they found that if you, if you put the chemical on an ant, you know, like if you take a dead ant and you get the chemicals out of that ant that indicate that it's dead, there's a smell that it gives off. If you put that on a live ant, other ants will pick them up, struggling. [00:12:04] Speaker A: Oh. [00:12:05] Speaker B: And carry them to the trash pile and throw them out. So. [00:12:13] Speaker A: All right, so that is definitely an assessment of. Are you gonna kill the rest of the colony with your. Your death molding? [00:12:20] Speaker B: Yeah, you're dead. [00:12:21] Speaker A: Okay. [00:12:22] Speaker B: And they're like, no, no, I'm not, I'm not. I'm fine. And they're like, yep, you're dead, Chuck. [00:12:26] Speaker A: He crawls back and they're like, no. [00:12:28] Speaker B: She can clean herself off and come back. And they're like, oh, my God, we thought you were dead. So now your leg is scraped. Get over here. I'm going to bite it off. It's not a great day. [00:12:38] Speaker A: It's a bad day for that ant. Wow. If you want to check out our past. Is it episode 71? [00:12:47] Speaker B: You said episode 71. Wait, let me scroll back. [00:12:49] Speaker A: Catalog anywhere where you find podcasts. Yep, we're there, lurking in the shadows. [00:12:55] Speaker B: You were like, we're there working in the shadows. [00:12:57] Speaker A: And I was like, where's she going with this? You were excited. [00:13:00] Speaker B: CIA is that. [00:13:02] Speaker A: I was thinking more like a superhero, but sure. [00:13:05] Speaker B: Oh. Oh, okay. No, that's better. Yours is better. Yours is better. Mine feels like fringe. You're like, marvel. Yay. [00:13:15] Speaker A: Can you tell what we've been watching lately? Everybody, like, which direction we've been going in our yeah, we are on Facebook and Instagram if you'd like to chat with us about this. We are Brain Junk podcast there and of course we are always delighted when you like and subscribe. It truly tickles us and we appreciate it. Trace and I will catch you next time when we share more of everything you never knew you wanted to know and I guarantee you will not be bored.