Ultimate Swarms Page #3

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something like three trillion

individual crab larvae will be

released into the Indian Ocean.

But despite the incredible numbers,

the baby crabs will only make it

back to shore every six

or seven years.

And when they do, the scenes

are spectacular.

A super-swarm of tiny crabs

defies the odds

and climbs back out of the ocean.

For a land crab

trapped in a forest,

this swarm has the ultimate

survival strategy.

And across the globe,

there are similarly amazing sights

as other swarms set off on the move.

Individually, each animal has no

idea which way they're heading.

But as a group, somehow they all

move in the same direction.

But how do you get tens of millions

of individuals

to work together as a team?

Well, strangely, it's all thanks

to having nobody in charge.

It might sound like a recipe

for disaster,

but if you look at a colony

of leafcutter ants,

everyone is doing their own thing.

No single ant is in charge

of organisation, not even the queen.

But with every ant ignoring

the bigger picture

and focusing on the one job,

the process actually becomes

highly efficient.

So, by thinking like ants,

we're now changing the way

we look at some of our

own logistics.

Every day, millions of us travel

through the world's transport hubs.

Getting from A to B by the most

efficient route is vital

to keeping things running smoothly.

Something the ants do really well.

So, how would they run an airport?

By designing software capable

of thinking like a swarm,

we've been finding out.

An American airline tried to solve

a long-running debate -

was it faster to board a plane by

giving passengers allocated seating

or by allowing them to pick

their own seats?

Surprisingly,

when the computer programme used

digital ants to fill the plane,

it showed that sometimes, letting

people choose their own seats

is quicker than giving them

seat numbers.

Because when there's no top dog

to make decisions for us,

like the ants, we all have to think

for ourselves,

and it doesn't result in the chaos

you'd expect.

And new technology is taking this

even further,

with robots that use

swarm intelligence.

Just like insects,

these robots all do their own thing.

By reacting to each other,

they can combine to do things

that would be impossible

on their own.

The hope is that one day

these robots could be sent out

into some of our most

dangerous locations.

Artificial swarms working together

on the front line,

or on search and rescue missions,

replacing humans and potentially

saving lives.

But while some swarms work

together day after day,

other swarms exist for only

a few hours.

Coordination is critical.

Get it wrong,

and your whole life has been wasted.

This is a swarm that's seen

on just a few nights of the year.

Oh, my God!

It's a blackout.

GIRL SCREAMS:

Yes. They are alive.

To be in with a chance of finding

this swarm,

I'm travelling to the States,

to Wisconsin.

I'm chasing a massive swarm

that appears from nowhere,

so this part of my journey

will be a race against time.

To get a sense of the challenge

ahead,

I've come to the local weather

centre in La Crosse,

where they've been keeping a close

eye on the swarm's past movements.

That is just incredible!

It's like an explosion.

Right, this was just after sundown.

Some biological target is coming

out of the river

and then being carried by the wind

away from the Mississippi River.

If I could see that,

if that happened again,

or even anything

remotely like that...

I would be very, very happy.

So, what swarm could be so intense

that it shows up on weather radars?

Well, for just a few days every

summer, amazingly, millions,

some say trillions of mayflies take

to the sky to form dense clouds.

It's a blizzard of insects thick

enough to stop traffic.

But despite the massive size of this

swarm, it's unpredictable,

so finding it won't be easy.

Time for me to take to the airways.

Well, I'm in the right place and

it's more or less the right time.

But if I'm going to see a really

big swarm,

I've got an idea of how

I can enlist some local help.

Downtown La Crosse.

It's now 14.10. WIZM.

I'm George McGavin

and we're from the BBC.

RADIO DJ:
Swarms of mayflies have

attracted the attention

of famed entomologist

and TV host George McGavin.

For a lot of people around here

it's going to be surprising

to hear that you want to be

in the swarm. When we see

those swarms we want to get

in our car, get inside

and get away from it.

Why? It's fantastic.

For an insect to be able to halt

a train or a car, you know,

that's pretty special.

That's something

I really want to see.

We just need mayflies, lots of them.

And they can call any time, day or

night? Absolutely. We'll be there.

We'll be hot on the heels

of the swarm.

I just hope we get the phone calls.

I just hope we get folks ringing.

We've done what we can,

but it's impossible to predict where

the first sighting will come from.

One thing we do know is,

they all start off in the same

place - the Mississippi River.

Mayflies spend most of their lives

hidden underwater.

So by looking in the river,

I should be able to get right

to the source of this swarm.

So now, hopefully, in here

are one or two or more

mayfly nymphs.

In a good year, a grab of that size

might contain 15 nymphs,

and if you think of that,

it's a very small area

and if you multiply it

by this vast area,

that's the sort of volumes

of animals that we're hunting for.

Oh, here, we got one.

So, that's what we're after.

This is a mayfly nymph,

and they're perfectly adapted

for existing in silt.

They're very streamlined.

They've got two tusks

at the front of the head

for excavating through the mud.

They've got these really strong

front legs, as well,

which have little

sort of prongs on them.

So they are the perfect silt

inhabitants,

and they stay there for perhaps

a year, up to two years...

Until all conditions are right

to trigger a mass emergence.

It's thought water temperature

has a lot to do with it,

but lots of other factors like

weather and food supply

also play a role,

making it frustratingly difficult to

predict what's going on down there.

Unless you're a mayfly, that is.

With just 24 hours to emerge,

find a mate, breed

and get back to the river,

it's a race against time

for survival.

Miss it by just a few hours,

and you'll miss your one

and only chance to find a mate.

And I'm racing against

the clock, too.

Time to get back out on the road

and keep looking.

A swarm of mayflies could form

anywhere along the river.

But towns and roads are a good place

to start looking

because there's one thing

they just can't seem to resist.

Lights.

The brighter, the better.

So our shiny new modern lights

play havoc with them,

and bring chaos to our towns.

It could be that the lights

are a giant mayfly singles bar.

With just hours to breed,

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