On the Mating Swarms of Certain Chironomidae (Diptera)

Discovery of Parameters for Animation of Midge Swarms

“…4. Dancing Preference: The dancing movements are roughly figure-eight motions based on an imaginary vertical line through the center of the swarm [4]. 5.…”

“…A typical swarm is an aggregation of males "dancing" back and forth in a certain location [10]. Swarms tend to form in certain preferred locations, often based on visual cues or air currents [4,7]. For example, the midges may swarm directly above a light coloured area (such as a light-coloured straw hat) on a darker background [7].…”

“…Location Preference: The midges have a preference to swarm in a certain location , based on topographical features [4,7]. In the simulation, the swarming location is selected arbitrarily.…”

“…Conveniently, in three recent studies, Puckett, Kelley, and Ouellette have described in detail the movement of individual midges (Chironomus riparius) in a swarm [6,9,10]. We suggest specific criteria that allow us to assess the fidelity of the model to nature, based on this quantitative data and separate qualitative observations of midge behaviour [4,7]. From this research, we derived specific criteria to measure the fidelity to nature of a model of midge swarming.…”

“…This behaviour is different from flocking, in which the individuals have aligned movement and travel together [11], and it is also different from forming a torus, in which all of the individuals travel in a circle [2]. Male chironomus midges are well known for exhibiting swarming behaviour [4].…”