Ants live together in colonies, and each ant has a job to do. They all depend on each other. So what happens when an ant becomes injured? Scientists have learned that when a Florida carpenter ant has a certain kind of leg injury, another ant will amputate the injured leg by chewing it off. It may sound harsh, but the amputation usually saves the ant’s life.

Florida carpenter ants can become injured when they defend their home against invaders. If an ant injures its upper leg, another ant will lick the wound and then do the amputation. Scientists noticed that almost all the ants that had a leg amputated survived.

But are these amputations necessary? To find out, scientists tried separating some injured ants from their colonies so they could not have the amputations. Many of those separated ants did not survive. This is why scientists believe that an amputation can save an injured ant’s life.

Scientists believe the amputations stopped leg wounds from getting infected and becoming dangerous.

Scientists also noticed that the ants did an amputation only if the wound was high up on the leg. If the wound was lower on the leg, the ants only licked it. Scientists think it may be harder to stop an infection in the lower leg, so there would be no point in doing an amputation. 

Ants seem to know when to do the amputation and when not to do it. But that doesn’t mean they think carefully about their choices. Instead, they are acting on their instincts, scientist Daniel Kronauer told National Public Radio (NPR).

“[Ants] have basically evolved over like thousands and thousands and probably millions of years to be kind of ‘programmed’ to react to different kinds of injuries in a certain way,” Kronauer said.