Healthy ants that rub up against infected counterparts or even lick pathogenic fungal spores off them may be immunizing themselves and, ultimately, protecting their whole colony. Sylvia Cremer at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in Klosterneuburg and her colleagues infected ants (Lasius neglectus; pictured) with fluorescently labelled fungal spores (Metarhizium anisopliae) and released them among healthy members of their colony.
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