Coordinated group movements are often described as moving like a single organism, yet this analogy is typically a metaphor. Individuals, interacting with each other, lack the functional integration of the body parts of a single organism. It remains unresolved whether movement coordination can truly reproduce body-like organization. Here we show that during tightly coordinated movement, pairs of termites use the same exploration-stabilization division of labor observed within a single moving body. Using posture tracking, we demonstrate that leader-follower asymmetries in tandem running mirror anterior-posterior asymmetries in individual locomotion, with exploratory motion concentrated at the front and smoother, shorter trajectories at the rear. Our mathematical model reveals that such body-like coordination emerges from hierarchical interactions between leaders and followers, described by the temporal convolution of past locational cues rather than instantaneous responses. These results identify a control principle of hierarchical structured movement coordination, providing a novel way to design collective behavior.
Mizumoto, N., Kamimoto, S.
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