Termites

Lets start by saying that not all termite species are going to eat the wood in your home or attack the trees in the forest! Out of the 348 species of termites only about 20 species do damage. Most termites are grass feeders or feed on decayed wood, on or in the ground. Some termites and ants may live in the same area as the destructive termites but do no damage themselves. Timber borer damage to wood may be done by beetles or their larvae. Even over time such chemical gasses like sulphur dioxide when released can make the wood become weak and eventually collapse, although this is not common.

Termites do an important job of recycling the nutrients of fallen and rotten wood and leaves!

The termite species Coptotermes acinaciformis and Mastotermes can do do serious damage to our homes or to the forest in 3-5 years of a new colony starting up. The queen can lay over 2000 eggs a day.

Egg - Nymph - Worker - Soldier or Reproductive - King or Queen

The queen ant does nothing but lay eggs in a room in the middle of the nest. But it has not always been like this for the queen ant. Come along with us and meet the termites...The whole purpose of the colony is to survive! Lets take a look at the different termites role in the nest.

The queen and king

When the termites that can reproduce, have fully grown and have their wings, they leave the colony all at the same time.

The reproductive termites drop to the ground and shed their wings and find the perfect home in a tree, leaves or rotten log, their purpose is to reproduce. And so the females give off a scent to attract the males and they mate. The purpose of the king is to fertilise the queen from time to time.

At first they have no workers to look after these babies (baby termites are nymphs which means they change slowly and there is no papal stage. It is an incomplete metamorphosis), so they must take care of the young until there are enough workers and soldiers to take over these duties. This early stage in the new colony is a difficult time and many colonies will not survive past here.
If the queen has produced enough good workers and soldiers she will now spend her time laying eggs, lots of eggs, maybe up to 100 individual eggs a day. Her abdomen becomes larger as her ovaries get bigger. She may become 500 times bigger than she was before she started laying eggs. In some species she can now be up to 3 cm long. And close by is the king he does not change in size. Both the queen and king can live for many years, often over 50 years for the queen. They are one of the longest living insects.

Not all the queens and kings will take flight to start up a new colony.
Sometimes a replacement queen or king is needed and provided from inside the colony. These are selected from one of the many reproductive termites that might have been born in that colony, not all are needed or chosen to replace a king or queen. They will not grow wings or fly away to start another new colony, they are the back up.

Workers

Lets see who gets all the work done around the nest. The workers can be male or female whose sexual organs have not developed.
There are more workers in a colony than any other type of termite.
The workers do not defend the nest or reproduce. They are wingless and blind.
Because the workers could get eaten or dry out when leaving the nest they only go out when its humid and in search of food.
For some termites they may remain worker termites for their whole lives and in other species they may change to soldiers.
The workers make the exit hole out of the nest when its time for the winged reproductives to leave. It is then sealed by the workers when they have left.

The worker termites eat the food where they find it and then return to the colony, where the other younger workers and soldiers feed on the products from the oral and anal areas of the worker termites. Eeeeeuuuuuww!

The worker termites feed the queen and king, and take care of all their needs like grooming, cleaning etc.

Mandibulate soldiers that have the large jaws or mandibles on the front of the head.

Go Here to see our video of a Mandibulate termite in the Tamani Desert in Western Australia

Nasute soldiers that have a large head that tapers to a sudden point at the front and has no mandibles or nippers.

What the nasute soldiers lack for in bite, they make up for in chemical warfare. On the point of their head they have a pore that oozes out a chemical liquid to ward off any intruder into the nest. In some species the liquid is a white latex. The soldiers role of either the nasute or the mandibulate is to defend the colony against ants and other enemies.
In some termites there might be two different sizes of soldiers in the one species. The workers and soldiers live for one or two years. From hatching to mature worker or soldier usually takes about two to three months, but this depends on food supply and the weather conditions.

Reproductives

The reproductives are the sexual forms of the colony. The future kings and queens. So they are not a separate group in the colony but I am listing them here to describe them before they become a king or queen. They have compound eyes and are darker in body than the workers or soldiers. As they grow, like with the other termites, they shed their skins until they are fully winged adults. Reproductives usually only leave the colony when the weather is humid like before or after a storm.

Not all species of termites fly off to start new colonies, other reproductives just walk out of their old colony and start a new one.

At this time when they leave the safety of the nest or colony they are at great risk of being eaten. Termites are a fattening food source for many birds and bats, geckos and spiders. Even in the safety of their nest they are attacked by ants, geckos, lizards, echidnas and numbats.

What do termites eat?

Termites that eat wood can not digest the wood. The wood is digested by microscopic organisms called protozoa that live inside the termites intestine. Without the protozoa the termites would starve to death.
Termites have two stomach's.
Termites feed on grass, leaves, wood and wood products and bark. Termites seem to prefer the products that are breaking down or rotting due to fungi. Termites require protein as well as carbohydrates in their diet, and this is usually supplied by the fungi from the decaying wood and plant matter.
Some termites need high humidity to survive and this is where the fungi grows best in decaying material.

Who eats the termites?

Goldern Bandicoot Photographed at Perth Zoo

Blind snakes and small mammals like the Goldern bandicoot and the bilby, the numbat and the echidna eat termites. Other animals that benefit from the mounds are snakes, gecko's, spiders, cockroaches, goannas and the Red backed Kingfisher can make their homes in the mounds.

Nests/ Colonies

Termites are social and live in colonies. A colony is above the ground and below the ground. What you see on top is only a small amount of the termites nest compared to what is under the ground. Their nest may even be in a tree.

In their nest they make long passages and rooms where they store food, have a nursery for the nymphs, and a room for the queen, they even have a room for their rubbish or dead termites. What amazed us was the amount of tunnels and holes inside the mound, there were literally thousands of passages. You would need a good map to get around one of these places. Some mound nests have a softer outside and a harder inside where others are in reverse.
Mound termites get their food by making tunnels under ground and finding the food material.

Termite mound seen in the Tanami Desert WA

These tunnels can go in all directions in search of food. They make the tunnels to keep themselves moist and to stay out of the sun.

Each termite in the colony has its own work to do.

Some species of colonies may have around 100 termites, where others may have up to 2 million termites!

This termite mound was seen at Joffre Falls in the Karijini National Park in the Pilbara.

The type of nest or colony is different for different species. We will look at a few of these nests or colonies.
The ground nests can be in many forms depending on the species, such as the tall upright mounds of the Magnetic termite of the Northern Territory to low dome shaped mounds.

At night the workers break through the surface of the ground and cover areas of grass cutting and collecting pieces and taking them down into the mound, nearby the soldiers keep guard and by dawn the last termite is back inside and the hole is sealed over.

They benefit the environment by burrowing which brings to the surface clay and minerals.

To make the nest. Hundreds of workers carry jaws full of wet earth and put it in a net-like pattern on the surface of the mound and gradually build up walled enclosures. Then a roof shaped like honeycomb is made in layers over the top.

This is inside the spinifex termite mound at the Western Australian Museum in Perth, where you can see the passages and tunnels. The mound is a store house for dried cut grasses.

These mounds are so strong they are able to withstand heavy down pours of torrential rain and may survive for up to a century. If any damage is done to the mound the workers come out and repair the damage.

Here you can see the termites making use of a small bush as a support for their termite mound.

How do ants and termites stay cool?

Ants: Even in the desert a few centimetres below the ground surface the temperature is cooler and stays constant. The deeper the ants make their nest the cooler it gets and so the nest will have different levels for the ants to go to in different temperatures. This also allows them to go up towards the top of the nest to catch the morning sun.

Termites: In Northern Australia the Magnetic or compass termite builds a wedge -shape nest around 3.5 metres high facing in a north- south direction. This allows the nest to get the morning sun but when the sun is high in the sky and hot it shines on the least amount of the nests surface.

These mounds were around 11/2 metres high and were seen at Udamung Brook Reserve 25km south of New Norcia.

Here are some termites of Western Australia;

Spinifex termites Nasutitermes triodiae. Some of the largest termite mounds to be seen in Australia are made from these worker termites that are no bigger than 7 mm long. The reason why different mounds are different colours is because of the different coloured dirt used to make each mound.

This is a spinifex termite mound The spinifex termites are nasutites (see the above drawing) and they eat spinifex and other grasses.

This photograph was taken on Marble Bar Rd in the Pilbara

This mound was seen in Broome WA

This mound was seen at the Porongurup Ranges in the Great Southern region WA Photograph by Mary Heslen.

Go here to see how many animals eat or use the termite mounds http://savanna.ntu.edu.au/publications/tropical_topics/download/topics64a.pdf

Mastotermes darwiniensis 'Giant termites' live along the top of tropical Australia. It is a primitive termite. They do not build mounds but nest in tree trunks, root crowns and stumps. Each nest can have a range of 70metres. The nest can have over 100,000 termites. These termites most resemble their cockroach ancestors. This species attacks wood of houses, buildings, poles etc and can ring bark trees and damage sugar cane. Go here to see a picture of this termite http://www...abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s93741.htm and here;
http://www.ento.csiro.au/aicn/name_c/a_1088.html

Bifiditermes termite found in the South-west of Western Australia. Their family name is Kalotermitidae. Small colonies are found in dead wood of many native and some exotic tree species. Colonies can also be found in poles in the ground. Soldiers have long heads which are club-like. They may enter into sound (not rotten) wood. These termites prefer damp wood. See here for the different termites that like dry wood and damp wood. http://www.utoronto.ca/forest/termite/kalocomp.htm

Coptotermes acinaciformis from the Rhinotermitidae family are considered to be the most destructive termite species in Australia. They attack all timber structures and damage forests, ornamental trees and fruit trees. It does not build a mound nest or colony but mostly nests in trees, stumps, poles or filled in verandahs where timber has been buried. Also found in various eucalypts and peppercorns in the root crown or the lower part of the trunk.

These interesting termites were building their tower right on the car park road at Dales Gorge in Karijini National Park in the Pilbara in December.

This is what the tunnel looks like from on top. I think they build these towers when the reproductive ants are ready to leave.

This cup shape mound just above the ground was common at Julimar National Park and at Neerabup Nature Reserve off Wanneroo Rd north of Perth. I haven' been able to get it identified.

This mound was seen at Julimar National Park off Julimar Road north east of Perth

This termite structure was seen in the Tanami Desert in August.

<<<<<<

Assignments: Go and collect a few termites in a jar. With the information that we have provided here showing the differences between termites and ants, can you now see which is which. (Be careful not to get bitten!) You can use a magnify glass to see them better.
Draw a picture of an ant and a termite showing the differences between them.

OR: Using this site http://savanna.ntu.edu.au/publications/tropical_topics/download/topics64a.pdf Draw a web that shows all the different animals and insects that rely on the termites or their mounds for the species where you live.

Text and links that we used:

"Australian Termites and other common timber pests" by Phillip Hadlington illustrations by Louise Beck. Very informative and easy to read. Pictures in black and white.
"A Field Guide to Insects In Australia" by Paul Zborowski and Ross Storey. There are great photographs in this book.
"Bugs Uncover The Creepy-Crawly World of Minibeasts" by Orbis Publishing. This was a series of magazines that have fantastic pictures, articles, and games for all ages. This series is on worldwide insects.
"An Exploration Of The Lives Of Insects Alien Empire" by Christopher O'Toole
"Backyard Insects" by Paul A Horne and Denis J Crawford
"101 Wacky facts about Bugs and Spiders" by Jean Waricha. No insult intended to the author, but I don't know how true some of these facts are, they are added for entertainment only.
Western Australian Museum fact sheets.
http://www.termite.com/wa/termites.html Good pictures and information. Just remember they are selling something.
http://www.utoronto.ca/forest/termite/aus-dist.htm Go here if you want to see some pictures of Termites or find what family a termite might belong to.

What did the chair say to the termite? You bore me!