Body-like coordination emerges in paired termite locomotion

Coordinated group movements are often described as moving “like a single organism,” yet this analogy is typically a metaphor. Individuals, interacting with each other, lack the functional integration of the body parts of a single organism. It remains unresolved whether movement coordination can truly reproduce body-like organization. Here we show that during tightly coordinated movement, pairs of termites use the same exploration–stabilization division of labor observed within a single moving body. Using posture tracking, we demonstrate that leader– follower asymmetries in tandem running mirror anterior–posterior asymmetries in individual locomotion, with exploratory motion concentrated at the front and smoother, shorter trajectories at the rear. Our mathematical model reveals that such body-like coordination emerges from hierarchical interactions between leaders and followers, described by the temporal convolution of past locational cues rather than instantaneous responses. These results identify a control principle of hierarchical structured movement coordination, providing a novel way to design collective behavior.