Biting, snapping & exploding - Dentispicotermes brevicarinatus

[ItalianTermiteMan]

Soldier and worker of Dentispicotermes brevicarinatus, an interesting and rare termite from the Amazon forest.

These soldier are peculiar for being able to perform 3 different styles of attack: firstly, they can fight with both "standard" bites and by employing the simmetrical snap technique, where their two elongated mandibles are pressed one against the other to store energy and then release a powerful blow; but if anything else fail they can also self-rupture their bodies, smearing a sticky and toxic bright-yellow fluid (always well visible through their bodies) onto incoming attackers and sacrificing themselves for their colonies in a prime example of autothysis. This rarely encountered species is a soil feeder and can can be found both nesting indipendently and inside other species' mounds, but our knowledge of them is very cursory. In any case, just like the vast majority of termites they are no pests and do no harm to human structures or activities.

Pic by Dr. Jan Sobotnik (Termite Reserch Team), Petit Saut, French Guyana.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

Soldier and worker of Dentispicotermes brevicarinatus, an interesting and rare termite from the Amazon forest.

These soldier are peculiar for being able to perform 3 different styles of attack: firstly, they can fight with both "standard" bites and by employing the simmetrical snap technique, where their two elongated mandibles are pressed one against the other to store energy and then release a powerful blow; but if anything else fail they can also self-rupture their bodies, smearing a sticky and toxic bright-yellow fluid (always well visible through their bodies) onto incoming attackers and sacrificing themselves for their colonies in a prime example of autothysis. This rarely encountered species is a soil feeder and can can be found both nesting indipendently and inside other species' mounds, but our knowledge of them is very cursory. In any case, just like the vast majority of termites they are no pests and do no harm to human structures or activities.

Pic by Dr. Jan Sobotnik (Termite Reserch Team), Petit Saut, French Guyana.


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Heck of a tough looking soldier and nymph ? Impressive!!! Keep these coming termites and ants are so interesting I can’t stop reading these short articles your writing . And great pictures you find or take .

 

[ItalianTermiteMan]

Heck of a tough looking soldier and nymph ? Impressive!!! Keep these coming termites and ants are so interesting I can’t stop reading these short articles your writing . And great pictures you find or take .

Thanks! The specimen beside the soldier is a mature worker, "nymphs" in termites is a term referred to wing-budded immatures of the nymphal line (which will eventually give rise to primary royals and/or nymphoid neotenics, though in some more primitive families they are also capable of regressive molts).