19758

It is not only the scientific literature that documents the unexpected “doughnut” pattern in swarms. Italo Calvino’s fictional Mr. Palomar observed (rather more lyrically) about the flocking of Roman starlings, “Finally a form emerges from the confused flutter of wings, advances, condenses: it is a circular shape, like a sphere, a bubble, the balloon-speech of someone who is thinking of a sky full of birds … ” (Mr.