Ants Instinctively Seek Out Natural Medicines [1]

Healthy ants wanted nothing to do with free-radical-rich foodstuff, but ants exposed to a pathogenic fungus sought it out, which upped their odds of survival.

We humans take medicine when we're sick. As do our primate cousins. Chimps, for example, snack on a bitter African shrub to combat intestinal worms [2]. But the habit extends even to invertebrates. Take fruit flies—which sip alcohol to ward off parasitic wasps [3]. Or wood ants, which line their nests [4] with antifungal, antibacterial tree sap. Now researchers in Finland report that ants there that have encountered a pathogenic fungus appear to fight the infection by eating foods high in free radicals. Those are molecules with a talent for causing cell damage, in this case, to the cells of the fungus. That's according to a study in the journal Evolution. [Nick Bos et al, Ants medicate to fight disease [5]]