Army ant jaws serve humans as emergency surgical sutures

Evidence

Army ant soldiers have giant jaws and thick, distended heads. En masse, these formidable little warriors can topple scorpions, lizards, and birds. They also can be handy to humans, as at least a few tropical biologists can attest. As a graduate student I spent three weeks in Belize with a biology class, living in the muddy forest understory in tents learning how to conduct field experiments. I wore a machete in a cheap plastic sheath hanging from my belt, and one afternoon as I stripped for a swim the handle of the machete caught on my pants. I must have been talking or otherwise distracted, because I never noticed the blade sliding across my thumb until it was too late—I’d sliced clean through to the bone. We were miles away from civilization with no easy way to get to a hospital. So we sterilized the wound with rum and sutured it with ants. One person held the edges of the cut closed, while another carefully positioned the ants. Angry soldiers reach out with their huge jaws agape, but as soon as you place them against skin, the jaws clamp shut. Pop the rest of the body from the head and you have a surprisingly effective suture. A row of five or six ants worked nicely, once I got used to the idea. — Emlen, Douglas J, Animal Weapons_ The Evolution of Battle, 131

Categorization

• XREF: Connects soldier ant jaw morphology to human medical improvisation; a striking technology-borrowed-from-animal example.