Diseased Baby Ants Ask Their Nestmates to Poison Them With Acid to Protect the Colony, Study Finds

New research shows that terminally ill baby ants tell other ants to kill them, potentially protecting the rest of the colony from their infection.

In a study published today in the journal Nature Communications, researchers revealed that ant pupae—what a larva grows into before becoming an adult—of the Lasius neglectus ant species actively produce a chemical signal that causes other colony members to destroy them. The findings further solidify the view of an ant colony as a “superorganism” behaving as a single entity rather than a community of many individuals.

Selfless ants

“Sick individuals often conceal their disease status to group members, thereby preventing social exclusion or aggression,” the researchers wrote in the paper. On the other hand, researchers have documented sick