https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/11/181105160835.htm

In a new study, a team led by CU Boulder's Franck Vernerey set out to understand the engineering principles that underlie self-assembled structures of fire ants -- each one containing hundreds to thousands of insects or more. Specifically, the researchers wanted to lay out how those structures become so flexible, changing their shapes and consistencies in seconds.

To do that, they used statistical mechanics to calculate the way that ant colonies respond to stresses from outside, shifting how they hang onto their neighbors based on key thresholds.