Worm towers– sometimes called swarms– “were kind of just whispered about in the worm community,” says Ding. But though superorganism behavior is uncommon across the tree of life, worm towers themselves are surprisingly commonplace. On rotting apples and pears, they found dozens of nematode towers wiggling at the edges and points of the fruits’ fleshy topography. Here’s their recipe for encouraging worm towers: place a few thousand nematodes on a food-free petri dish that’s flat except for a single tooth brush bristle pointing upwards. In additional experiments with fruit flies and with a plastic probe, the researchers showed that worm towers strategically move towards any object that touches them or brushes by.