The Astonishing Surgery Performed by Ants

Amputation is the removal of an organ that can no longer heal. To carry it out, one has to know which organ must be removed and exactly how and where the cut should be made. Without the necessary equipment, the procedure fails or puts the patient's life at risk. Scientists were therefore astonished to discover that this difficult intervention, long thought to be unique to humans, is also performed by ants.¹

Many ant species clean and treat the wounds of injured nestmates with their saliva. Florida carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus), however, go further: they amputate the legs of injured members of the colony. Remarkably, this is a deliberate choice — amputation is not applied to every injury.

If an ant is injured on the lower leg (the tibia), the leg is not amputated; the wound is cleaned with saliva instead. But if the wound is on the femur — the upper part of the leg — the leg is amputated. Observations showed that 90–95% of the amputated ants survived, an important indication of how precisely the procedure is carried out. Cleaning and treating an infected wound with saliva alone succeeds in about 75% of cases.

The scientists state that amputation in ants is the first known example of this behavior in any creature other than humans. Dr. Erik T. Frank of the Department of Animal Ecology and Tropical Biology at the University of Würzburg expressed his amazement:

“The fact that the ants are able to diagnose a wound, see if it's infected or sterile, and treat it accordingly over long periods of time by other individuals — the only medical system that can rival that would be the human one.”

The skillful surgery performed by ants is an example of God's art of creation. That any worker ant can determine the right treatment according to the location of the wound and apply it successfully is astonishing. This alone is enough to lead people who use their reason and conscience to think deeply.

That many ant species produce a microbe-killing secretion from a special gland in the thorax is a marvel in itself. It is even more astonishing that the carpenter ant, which lacks such a gland, overcomes this deficiency by cutting off the injured leg. When you consider that educated people cannot amputate a leg — cannot even stitch a wound, or know how to use and produce a disinfectant — you begin to understand what a magnificent task the ant accomplishes and what a wondrous creature it is.

Single-celled organisms, insects, wild animals and plants — all examples of the creation of the Most Merciful God — introduce us to God's art with their complex bodies and perfect social skills, just as ants do, and prove that they did not come into being by chance.

Source

1. Will Dunham, “Ants perform limb amputations on injured comrades to save their lives,” Reuters, July 2, 2024. reuters.com ↩