ItalianTermiteMan
Arachnosquire
- Joined
- Jul 23, 2023
- Messages
- 146
Here we have an excellent set of pic all shot by photographer Wynand Uys (Attribution CC licence) showing the dangerous work these south African Odontotermes termite workers must undertake when building new vents for their mound. Let's start with the pics and the description:
A general view of the situation, with still under construction vents (or maybe alate launching tubes) visible atop this small mound.
Here we can see the workers buisy building with a fast-drying and robust "cement" made of soul, feces and salivary secretion. Note how there
are two types of workers: majors (bigger overall and with proportionally more robust heads) and minors (tiny and smaller-headed, and whose
main task is to care for the brood, soldiers and royals). Soldiers are present in Odontotermes but none is shown here.
But danger lurks around in the form of an aggressive ant species, the pugnacious ant (Anoplolepis custodiens). The ants don't assault the
building termities head on, but loiter and patrol around the construction works ready to grab and pull away workers that strayed too far from
the bulk of their companions. Here, two individual have captured a minor worker.
Still, even hunting workers is not fully exempt of risks, for despite not being very effective combatant their stout mandibles can still pack quite
powerful bites and be used for self-defence in a pinch. Here, a major worker retaliate against an attacker by clamping both of its antennae in its jaws.
To next post folks!
A general view of the situation, with still under construction vents (or maybe alate launching tubes) visible atop this small mound.
Here we can see the workers buisy building with a fast-drying and robust "cement" made of soul, feces and salivary secretion. Note how there
are two types of workers: majors (bigger overall and with proportionally more robust heads) and minors (tiny and smaller-headed, and whose
main task is to care for the brood, soldiers and royals). Soldiers are present in Odontotermes but none is shown here.
But danger lurks around in the form of an aggressive ant species, the pugnacious ant (Anoplolepis custodiens). The ants don't assault the
building termities head on, but loiter and patrol around the construction works ready to grab and pull away workers that strayed too far from
the bulk of their companions. Here, two individual have captured a minor worker.
Still, even hunting workers is not fully exempt of risks, for despite not being very effective combatant their stout mandibles can still pack quite
powerful bites and be used for self-defence in a pinch. Here, a major worker retaliate against an attacker by clamping both of its antennae in its jaws.
To next post folks!
