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2020-05-21 21:33 Arno  
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for quite some time I'’ve been wondering whether a relation exists between the rolling fly formations (rff; see 'firefly parade' caves) and the swarm dff's discovered by  dustin .  
  
Now I have the answer: yes! Both phenomena are based on similar principles and this cave demonstrates the relation! :-D  
  
Some interesting things to note:  
  
\ The rff's require at least 2 full layers while the swarms need at least 3. So the smallest rff's do not have a swarm counterpart and the relation starts existing from the 8-fly variant onwards.  
\ Both type of formations can be extended horizontally; however, this happens with 2 steps for the rff's while with 3 steps for the swarms.  
\ Both type formations can also be extended vertically by adding layers. This cave only shows complete layers but an incomplete top layer is possible too.   
\ If the top layer is complete, then basically the flies at the outside are rolling around the flies in the centre. The flies in the centre may be either fflies or bflies, but there is one exception: for a swarm the second line (counting from the bottom) must have bflies in the centre except for every third fly after the first which may be a ffly instead (so numbers 1, 4, 7, 10, etc. may be ffly and all others must be bfly).  
\ Of course a combination of horizontal and vertical extension is possible as well for both types.  
  
I've just started a big project of (finally) writing 2 articles about the rolling formations and the swarm formations. In the near future, expect some more demo caves from me on these phenomena! :-D

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2020-05-21 21:34 shredder  
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wooow! great! :O :O :O

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2020-05-21 21:38 DarkStoorM  
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This is actually amazing, holy Jesus

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2020-05-21 21:48 dustin  
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what the f...irefly! that's fantastic!

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2020-05-21 23:45 nesdori  
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wow! great formations and research! :D

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2020-05-22 10:41 Arno  
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thx! i particularly liked the horizontal expansion. so after the 'butterfly bus' we now also have a 'butterfly train', expecially for bfly couples, but: with 1.5 meters mutual distance, in accordance with the corona measures! ;-D