 Termites are primitive insects
with a minuscule brain. Their mounds, however, are particularly complex
and useful constructions. How are they able to manage this? Is there a
master mind among them?
Are they following a divine plan?`
Pierre-Paul Grassé described in 1959 the role of pheromones
(odouring secretions) for the construction:
Each termite rolls a mud bowl mixing some phermone in it. Then it will
deposit the bowl preferentially
at a place where the concentration of pheromone in the air is high.
This
is particularly the case
on the top of the bowls which have been deposed the last.
In this way, columns arise. If two of them stand side by side, the
termites will put their
bowls inclined towards the interspaced because there, the odour
concentration is high.
Thus, arcades and vaults are formed.
So, the "divine plan" is just a consequence of the behaviour of each
termite deposing its
dumpling where it smells most.
This simulation is just my first attempt; there is not yet too much
useful coming out of it, but it makes the principle evident.
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