Topic: Research News

Scientists discovered ants that clean bigger ants. This is the first time this has been seen. The small ants lick and nibble on the bigger ants' bodies.

In the deserts of southeastern Arizona, scientists found a surprising scene. Small cone ants were climbing onto much larger harvester ants and cleaning their bodies. This is the first known example of one ant species cleaning a much larger ant. The behavior was reported in the journal Ecology and Evolution by entomologist Mark Moffett, a research associate at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History.

Moffett compared this interaction to cleaner fish in the ocean that remove parasites and dead skin from larger fish. He said,

Implications

Scientists discovered ants that clean bigger ants. This is the first time this has been seen. The small ants lick and nibble on the bigger ants' bodies.