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PHDNM
11-27-2018, 04:22 AM
Sick ants stay away from the kids

They stay out, at work, to protect everyone in the nest from infection.

https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/Lasius_Niger-800x600.jpg

Ants are the poster children for eusociality. Each ant has a job, and each ant sticks to its job: the foragers forage, the workers work, the nurses nurse, the queen procreates. It has been assumed that this strict segregation of ant society into age-and-task groups could help prevent epidemics, but this assumption had never been tested. Finally, a group of scientists got together and figured out how to do the experiment using 22 colonies of Lasius niger, the common black garden ant.

https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/11/sick-ants-stay-away-from-the-kids/