Inside the royal chamber - Macrotermes sp.

[ItalianTermiteMan]

This picture by Dr. Jan Sobotnik brings us an interesting peek at the inside of a incipient Macrotermes (maybe M. barneyi) termite royal chamber.

Here we can see all the castes and subcastes typical of the Macrotermes genus: minor and major soldiers, minor (one at bottom-left) and major workers and a primary royal, in this case a young but already moderately physogastric queen... only the king is missing! Sterile castes and subcastes are also sex-specific: both minor and major soldiers are all females, major workers are all males, and minor workers all females. You can also see the tiny, white and rather cute larvae (yes, despite being hemimetabolous insects in termites dependant stages with no wing buds are to be called larvae) and some scattered eggs.
The termites of the genus Macrotermes are native to parts of the African and Asian continents and live in symbiosis with an unique genus of mushrooms called Termitomyces, which is cultivated inside their nests on complex alveolar structures called fungus combs. They're also the builders of the most notoriously massive termitaries, though not all species actually build an epigeal mound and some build their nests totally underground. In the Neotropics they (along with the whole Macrotermitinae subfamily) are ecologically replaced by Syntermitinae genera like Syntermes and Cornitermes.

Pic by Dr. Jan Sobotnik (shared with permission); Bubeng, China.

 

[viper69]

Didn’t know there were minor soldiers!

 

[Elytra and Antenna]

Looks like there's three or four minor soldiers but how do you tell them from immature soldiers?

 

[ItalianTermiteMan]

Looks like there's three or four minor soldiers but how do you tell them from immature soldiers?

Termite presoldiers (the short purely transitional stage that always precede soldiers) are morphologically different from mature soldiers (though the precise extent of these differences varies with the species), but the quickest and easiest way to tell them apart is the color, as they are wholly milky white just like the larvae (and in a few species pink or yellow).