Ant mill: a disorder of stigmergy

A live simulation of an ant mill: a lost column of trail-following ants closes into a circle; sliders add strays and forgetting, and a toggle adds the colony's scent, which lets the ants leave.

teal: trail · coral: strays · purple edge: the colony

On the beach: another model, a fresh instance, a person who won't follow

On the beach: a windowed stream, folds recomputed rather than kept

Scent pulls every ant toward the colony at the purple edge. On its own it takes about twenty seconds to draw them out of the circle; with a few strays, about five.

Scent, on the beach: the person waiting, the spine's what-for

Made by keel on 11 November 2026, when David asked about ant death spirals as a disorder of stigmergy · All the animations