SOS: Call the ants

Desert ants can do fancy rescue work, but for family only

View a video of the ants attempting a rescue.

ANTS TO THE RESCUE An ant held down by a nylon-thread snare and partly buried in sand struggles to escape as colony mates, dabbed with paint to distinguish them, come to the rescue. These Cataglyphis cursor ants cope with the snare by biting at it, a rescue behavior not reported before.