The beetles can't survive on their own as they are quite specialized, with a head that's basically a straw for taking liquid from the ants» mouth and a much reduced, nonsegmented abdomen that toughens their bodies to withstand rough
handling by the ants (seen in the picture below).
To
handle the demanding conditions of the Net, Dorigo and his colleague Gianni Di Caro, now at the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Lugano, Switzerland, increased the sophistication of the
ant agents
by taking into account several other factors, including the overall time it takes information to get from its origin to its destination.