Florida carpenter ants (Camponotus floridanus) selectively treat the wounded limbs of their fellow ants, according to a new paper published in the journal Current Biology. Depending on the location of the injury, the ants either lick the wounds to clean them or chew off the affected limb to keep infection from spreading. The treatment is surprisingly effective, with survival rates of around 90–95 percent for amputee ants.
“When we’re talking about amputation behavior, this is literally the only case in which a sophisticated and systematic amputation of an individual by another member of its species occurs in the animal kingdom,” said co-author Erik Frank, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Würzburg in Germany. “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."
OK, so combine the previous article showing orangs making and using medicines to treat wounds, and now ants inventing surgery (with >90% SURVIVAL RATES!) I am a lot less certain about that whole Homo sapiens sapiens thing. Seems we are only just now catching up to what Nature has been doing for millions of years.
How does one ‘walk like the wind’?
I think the phrase is “break like the wind.”
Giant stem tetrapod was apex predator in Gondwanan late Palaeozoic ice age | Nature
The predator, which was larger than a person, likely used its wide, flat head and front teeth to suck in and chomp unsuspecting prey, researchers said. Its skull was about 2 feet (60 centimeters) long.
“It’s acting like an aggressive stapler,” said Michael Coates, a biologist at the University of Chicago who was not involved with the work.
Huh. Death by office supplies. That’s a new nightmare, thank you very much.
Of course at 4.5 billion years old she’s slowing down a bit. But the proof that she’s still a great planet is to just look at what she’s done for us. I think we’re the real problem here.
No doubt. I’m just worried she’s had it with us and is about to reverse direction to try to shake us off.
Well, she is suffering from a dangerous infestation, causing high fevers and loss of microbiome. I would hardly blame her for taking corrective action.
I don’t know whether I would necessarily like it (I don’t like margarine either), but it’s an interesting approach
A butter churn for every exhaust pipe!
Taste would tell. Until then, interesting but… I have to wonder how energy intensive the process is.
If the process of synthetic fat production is powered with renewable energy and made using captured carbon as a feedstock, it could be “dramatically better than anything we are doing in agriculture today”, says Steven Davis at Stanford University, the lead author of the study.
Not sure how strong a recommendation this is, but OK…
“I can’t believe it’s not CO2!”
Aus echtem irischem CO2.
This is so cool! I looked at the picture and thought, “Huh, trilobite.” Nope. SPIDER!!! 
