Ant mill

Short description: Phenomenon in which a group of ants march in a continuously rotating circle

An ant mill is an observed phenomenon in which a group of army ants are separated from the main foraging party, lose the pheromone track and begin to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle, commonly known as a "death spiral" because the ants might eventually die of exhaustion. It has been reproduced in laboratories and has been produced in ant colony simulations.[1] The phenomenon is a side effect of the self-organizing structure of ant colonies. Each ant follows the ant in front of it, which works until a slight deviation begins to occur, typically by an environmental trigger, and an ant mill forms.[2] An ant mill was first described in 1921 by William Beebe, who observed a mill 1200 ft (~370 m) in circumference.[3] It took each ant two and a half hours to make one revolution.[4] Similar phenomena have been noted in processionary caterpillars and fish.[5]

## Contents

* 1 In popular culture
* 2 See also
* 3 References
* 4 External links

## In popular culture

* The phenomenon is the inspiration for the Lemon Demon song "Spiral of Ants".[6]

## See also

* Information cascade
* Feedback loop
* Stigmergy
* Woozle effect
* The blind leading the blind
* Rat king

## References

1. ↑ "Army Ants Trapped by Their Evolutionary History". PLOS Biology 1 (2): e37. 2003. doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.0000037. PMID 14624241.
2. ↑ Couzin ID & NR Franks (2003). "Self-organized lane formation and optimized traffic flow in army ants". Proceedings of the Royal Society B 270 (1511): 139–146. doi:10.1098/rspb.2002.2210. PMID 12590751.
3. ↑ Beebe, William (1921). Edge of the Jungle. New York: Henry Holt and Co.. pp. 291–294. https://books.google.com/books?id=ArMZAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA291.
4. ↑ Surowiecki, James (2005). Wisdom of the Crowds. New York, New York, USA: Anchor Books. p. 40.
5. ↑ "A unique case of circular milling in ants, considered in relation to trail following and the general problem of orientation". American Museum Novitates (1253): 1–26. 1944.
6. ↑ "Spiral of Ants, by Lemon Demon". https://lemondemon.bandcamp.com/track/spiral-of-ants.

## External links

* Ant mill videos:
* A software simulation of an ant mill (in Russian)
* "Untitled (Superorganism)", an artwork based on ant mills

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