Ant Colony

Small steps.
Shared discoveries.

One ant finds food. A trail brings others. Change the landscape and watch the colony respond.

0food delivered

0carrying food

Change their world Tool

Drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, or right-drag to pan.

Show scent trails

ScentFood180 workers

Let a trail form, then block it. Use 3× or 10× to watch the response sooner. Restart restores the original food and removes obstacles.

A simplified foraging model. Workers follow scent to food and use a separate home-navigation cue.

body > main { display: none; }.simulation-fallback { max-width: 720px; margin: auto; padding: 24px; line-height: 1.6; }.simulation-fallback img { width: 100%; height: auto; }← Explore all worlds

Ant Colony

Watch ants discover food and build scent trails. Block a route, move a rock, and see the colony find its way.

Dark ants carrying green food around a stone wall, with brown scent trails leading back to a nest.

Enable JavaScript in a browser with WebGL 2 to run this interactive simulation.

Ants can work together without a leader telling each worker where to go. A successful forager leaves a scent that others can follow.

Workers explore until they find nearby food. Each green piece carried back to the nest adds one to Food delivered.
Returning workers leave a scent called pheromone. The brown overlay makes it visible. Scent fades unless more workers renew it; hiding the overlay does not change their behaviour.
Rocks block movement. Ants can discover a way around, but a sealed barrier can cut off food completely.
This is a simplified model with 180 workers. A separate home-navigation cue guides returning ants along an open route to the nest. Births, hunger and nest building are not modelled.

Try this: Choose 3× and wait for a trail. Press Block the middle, then watch the workers explore around the wall. Try dragging it with Move obstacle. Scene only hides the controls for recording; press Escape or tap the bottom-right corner to return.