Just as people are now out of touch with each other because of coronavirus, they live far away to protect each other from the virus.Surprisingly, the same precautions are taken by tiny but sick ants, and obviously they do so to save other ants.
Experts at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, after long-term research on ants' colonies, have said that ants, like humans, may be more aware of their disease and have less contact with other healthy ants.
They have revealed that when food-collecting ants are infected with a fungus or germ, they lose contact with other members of the population.University professor Nathalie Stroemite carefully tagged the small ants and noted their movements.
According to him, the working ants in a colony are divided into two parts. One of them is the worker and nurse ants who take care of the ants' babies and eggs.Other types of ants are responsible for bringing in food from outside and are often infected with fungi.
To research this, the experts tracked all the ants automatically and found that the infected ants moved away from the rest of the colony after being infected with a type of fungus called "Metarhizium bronium".
The fungus was applied to the ants by the scientists themselves so that their disease and behavior could be observed during the experiment.
But at the same time, the nurse ants removed the young and the larvae from the middle and carried them to the inside of the burrow to prevent infection.
Experts believe that this process of ants is full of intelligence that protects them from diseases.
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