Crazy Ants Behave like Active Swimmers

Abstract

W ithout verbal communication, a group of 100 longhorn crazy ants can simultaneously grab onto an object 10,000 times their weight and collectively walk it to their nest. Scientists understand the ant-behavioral rules behind this feat but have lacked a coarse-grained description of how the groupmoves. Tabea Heckenthaler of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel and her colleagues now provide that description, showing that it fits expectations for a self-propelled particle [1]. The finding offers a simplified route to modeling complex systems.