termite

 Although they are closely related to cockroaches, termites are sometimes called “white ants” because their general appearance and social organization are like those of the ants. Termites, however, are distinguished from ants by their soft bodies and lighter color. Ants have hard bodies and are usually dark (see Ant). Furthermore, the termite’s midbody segment, or thorax, is broadly attached to the rear segment, or abdomen, whereas ants have a constriction where the thorax joins the abdomen. Termites belong to the insect order Isoptera.

More than 2,000 species of termite have been described, most of which live in the tropics. More than 40 species live in the United States. A typical colony lives underground in a damp, chamberlike nest. The colony is organized into a caste system with four different adult forms: royalty, nobility, soldiers, and workers. The royalty consists of the kings and queens, which carry on the work of reproduction. They have well-developed wings and eyes. The kings are usually smaller than the queens, which may reach a length of 4.3 inches (11 centimeters) in some species.

Once a year pairs of young kings and queens depart from the parent nest, leaving the ruling king and queen behind. Each pair starts a new colony nearby. They then shed their wings. Within a short time the young queens may begin laying eggs at the rate of 3,000 to 5,000 a day. The nobility consists of wingless or short-winged adults. They take over the work of reproduction if a king or queen should die.

The soldiers and workers—gray-white, wingless, usually blind, and less than 0.4 inch (1 centimeter) long—are the most populous members of the colony. Both male and female soldiers and workers are sterile, so they cannot reproduce. The soldiers, which have large heads and jaws, guard the nest against insect enemies, chiefly ants. The workers keep the colony supplied with food, and they actually feed the queens, soldiers, and young termites.

Termites feed primarily on wood fiber, or cellulose, which they get from dead trees, rotting plant material in the soil, fence posts, house timbers, or furniture. Although some kinds of termites can destroy human dwellings, they serve a vital function in the food web by recycling the nutrients in dead wood so that the nutrients can be used by bacteria and plants.

Cellulose is indigestible to nearly all animals, large or small, including termites. The termite workers, however, have formed a remarkable partnership, or symbiosis, with microorganisms called protozoans. The workers harbor the protozoans in their intestines. As they chew and swallow the wood fiber, the protozoans transform it into a product that termites can digest. Soldiers also have symbiotic protozoa, and they can digest cellulose after the workers have chewed it up for them. The soldiers’ enormous fighting jaws prevent them from gathering this fiber for themselves. Royalty and nobility lack protozoans and are fed on digested cellulose secreted by workers.

Worker termites may eat wood that is above ground by entering the wood where the timbers touch the ground. If a house has a stone foundation, the termites may build tubular, earthen passages over the foundation and up to the house beams. The termites thus maintain their contact with the ground and the necessary moisture. Under a porch they may erect towers more than 1 foot (0.3 meter) high to reach the wooden floor. Once inside the woodwork of a building, they tunnel in all directions, with no openings showing on the surface. Houses may be inspected for signs of termite problems by searching for hollow timbers, termite nests at the base of wood, or the insects themselves. Unfortunately, the first sign of their presence may be the collapse of a wall or some other wooden structure. Termites work in large numbers—as many as 4,000 have been counted in 1 cubic foot (0.03 cubic meter) of wood.

To rid an area of termites would require the destruction of all the nests. It is more practical to “insulate” a building against the insects by treating woodwork with chemicals or by covering all possible points of attack with metal.

The scientific name of the common ground-nesting termite of eastern North America is Reticulitermes flavipes. Besides the ground-nesting termites there are drywood, dampwood, and powderpost termites. Many of these species live not in soil but in the wood that they attack. They do not require moisture from the soil because they can conserve water in their bodies. These termites can also be eliminated from infested sites by the use of chemicals.

Mound-building termites live in South America, Africa, and Australia. Their brown mounds, or termitaries, often crowd together in a close group of slender towers. They are built of saliva-soaked soil particles and are as hard as concrete. Some termitaries are decades old and are more than 23 feet (7 meters) high and 43 feet (13 meters) wide at the base. The bases of some termitaries are oval, with the long axis pointing north and south, presumably so that the sun can reach both of the broad outside walls and keep them warm and dry.

Inside the walls of each termitary the social order is the same as that of the ground-nesting termites. The king and queen occupy the royal chamber. The king is small, but the queen is large and may carry as many as 75,000 eggs. Some of the larger queens lay one egg each second, 24 hours a day, during their reproductive life, which may last up to 10 years. After being laid the eggs are taken by nurses, washed with saliva to prevent mold, then carried to the hatchery, which is kept warm by decaying vegetation.

The sightless soldiers, with their strong scissors-like mandibles, guard every turn of the galleries inside the nest. Other soldiers, equipped with tough “helmets” to check any onrush of ants, guard the entrances from the outside world. The soldiers of some species have snouts through which they spray a sticky liquid that entangles the legs of their enemies and that also stupefies them. The worker caste gathers bits of wood to feed the entire community. Some termite colonies grow small mushrooms in fungus gardens for their food. Some have community “cows”—small beetles called termitophiles—that live only in termite nests and secrete a fluid relished by the termites.

J. Whitfield Gibbons