{"id":18344,"date":"2015-08-26T07:40:57","date_gmt":"2015-08-26T07:40:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/research\/ants-can-detect-their-health-issues-and-self-medicate\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T10:46:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T05:16:34","slug":"ants-can-detect-their-health-issues-and-self-medicate","status":"publish","type":"research","link":"https:\/\/www.editage.com\/insights\/ants-can-detect-their-health-issues-and-self-medicate","title":{"rendered":"Ants can detect their health issues and self-medicate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Humans are intelligent creatures and use medicines to treat themselves. However, do ants know how to treat their ailments? Researchers from the University of Helsinki, Finland, discovered that ants are capable of recognizing that they are sick and can self-medicate. The research team exposed black ants <em>Formica fusca <\/em>to fungal pathogens. Soon after, the ants began feeding on diet that contained hydrogen peroxide, which\u00a0can be found in the damaged plants, other insects and cadavers. This helped them survive the infections better. They also observed that ants without infection showed no interest in a hydrogen peroxide rich diet. According to the team, this behavior of ants proves that they are aware of their health status and ways to survive any disorders.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">Read more in <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedaily.com\/releases\/2015\/08\/150824064919.htm\">Science Daily<\/a><\/em>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":33313,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false},"new_tags":[],"series":[],"subject":[2868],"class_list":["post-18344","research","type-research","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","subject-plant-and-animal-science"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Ants can detect their health issues and self-medicate | Editage Insights<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ants can detect their health issues and self-medicate\" \/>\n<meta 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