Illness usually brings trouble in the animal world. A weak member may be pushed aside, attacked, or left behind. Many animals go to great lengths to hide sickness. But for creatures bound by family, ...

The behavior prevents fungal pathogens from spreading through the colony Researchers call it "altruistic disease signaling" that protects the ant superorganism In a rare example of biological altruism ...

Ant colonies operate as tightly coordinated "superorganisms" with individual ants working together, much like the cells of a body, to ensure their collective health. Researchers at the Institute of ...

Scientists studying the way ant colonies defend against disease have discovered a surprising strategy: Young ants who become terminally ill will send out an altruistic "kill me" signal for the worker ...

Ant larvae metamorphose into adults by pupating. It was assumed that these inert pupae don’t play a role in the wider ant colony, but a team of researchers have found that they actually secrete a ...

Everything in the ant hill seems to need the liquid secretions from members of the colony that are in their pupal stage. By Joshua Sokol Orli Snir, a biologist at the Rockefeller University in New ...