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Ant Pheromone Trails: Deposit, Decay & Trail Reinforcement (2D)

2D stigmergy lab: three nest-to-food routes of different length, each carrying its own pheromone concentration that evaporates exponentially and is reinforced by every ant crossing, so the colony converges on the shortest route through pure positive feedback.

Molecular Biology2DModerate60 FPS📱 Mobile-adapted⇄ 3D version

This 2D companion isolates the pheromone chemistry underlying the 3D colony rather than showing the whole foraging scene: three fixed routes of different physical length connect the nest to a food source, each route carries its own pheromone concentration that decays exponentially (C(t) = C₀·e^(−k·t)), and every ant that finishes crossing a route deposits a fixed dose of pheromone on it. Because round-trip time scales with route length while every ant moves at the same speed, the shortest route accumulates crossings — and therefore pheromone — fastest, and each ant's next route choice is drawn with probability weighted by relative pheromone strength, so the colony reliably locks onto the shortest route through nothing but deposit, decay and biased re-choice.

⚙ Under the hood

2D stigmergy lab with three independently-decaying pheromone channels, fixed-dose deposition per crossing, and an ACO-style probability rule (pheromone^α weighted) for route choice, plus a rolling dominant-route-share and convergence-time readout.

stigmergypheromone trailant colony optimizationexponential decaypositive feedbackswarm intelligence

2D · HTML5 Canvas 2D · 60 FPS target · runs fully client-side, no install