The Order of the
Fireflies
Every night, shortly after sunset, thousands of tiny insects gather
in the bushes of the Thai mangrove forests for
a
fascinating mating
ritual.
Pteroptyx spp,
a
male Southeast Asian
firefly,
starts blinking
in
a
regular rhythm, isolated at first, but slowly coordinating the
timing of its flashes to synchronise with other
fireflies
around it.
Patterns soon start to emerge
–
waves of light like on
a
ferris wheel
at times,
a
single synchronised flash at others
–
as the thousands of
fireflies
coordinate to illuminate entire streams, trees and fields in
a
hypnotic light show, highly organised but constantly evolving.
Who creates this stunning coordination between thousands of
tiny insects? There
is
no central conductor or agent that controls
them. There
is
no outside signal that allows them to sync. Rather,
the synchrony emerges from the bottom up through simple
interactions between individual
fireflies:
each reacts to the flashing
of
a
neighbouring
firefly,
slowly adjusting its own timing to match
that of its neighbours. Through this simple exchange, based on
a
low-level neural circuit, the insects achieve
a
degree of organisation
that surpasses that of the individual.
A
meta-organism seems to
have arisen. ...
