Now we see the violence inherent in the system: these ants (Megaponera analis; Africa - Mozambique in this case) are in mid-raid of a termite colony. It& #39;s not a "war"; the termites always lose. These ants eat only termites. Scouts go out looking for termite colonies, and when--

--they find one, they run back to tell their nestmates, then lead the raid. While in Gorongosa NP I saw several raids. I came upon this one while heading to breakfast one morning. The major workers are among the largest ants in the world. They rush about, crushing termites--

--in their mandibles (maybe stinging them too from what I saw), then the colony gathers up the dead termites and heads home. Termite soldiers do fight back, sometimes clipping off ant legs, but to no avail. What& #39;s really cool is that these ants care for their wounded. If an ant--

--loses 1 or 2 legs but can still stand, it emits a pheromone that causes its sisters to help it home. If it& #39;s so severely wounded it can& #39;t stand, it doesn& #39;t emit the pheromone and is left behind: self-triage. The ants not only rescue the wounded, they treat their wounds. Any--

--termites still clinging to a wounded ant are removed, and the open wound is "licked"/cleaned by the other ants. The study I read found that the mortality rate for wounded ants was 80% if left untreated, but only 10% when treated by nestmates.

Here& #39;s the paper I read, btw: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5829198/">https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/artic...