Ants seem to deal with their dead much like humans. When a member of the colony dies, the carcass will lie where it fell for a period of roughly two days and are carried to a designated place for their dead. But in reality Edward O. Wilson discovered, the dead ant must lay there for two days because the other ants simply don't realize it's dead.
Two days after death, the tiny ant corpse begins emitting a chemical called oleic acid. To an ant, the smell of oleic acid equals death. As soon as the living ants smell the oleic acid smell, they spring into action, carrying the carcass and dumping it into a pile.
More interesting, Wilson discovered that if you give a live ant a bath in oleic acid, it is as good as dead to the other ants. The still alive, but oleic acid covered, ant is carried off to the dead ant pile, trying to clean itself, flailing around. When returned to where it was before it was carried off again back to the dead ant pile.
A youtuber under the name The Action lab had a different reaction when he tested the experiment. When introducing the ant to oleic acid, after being frozen asleep, the ant tired to put itself to the dead ant pile. After a few days the oleic acid does dissipate and so the ant brought itself back from the dead.
video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPw9dSV6y2c
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