Royal court of Basidentitermes

[ItalianTermiteMan]

In this beautiful pic by Dr. Jan Sobotnik we can observe a physogastric queen of Basidentitermes, surrouded by dark-gutted workers and protected by cute soldiers equipped with armored heads and conspicuous sabre-shaped mandibles (and almost surely a defensive secretion produced in the frontal gland aswell).

This is a genus of soil-feeding, non-pest termites commonly found in central Africa and haling from the Cubitermitinae subfamily that can be found both nesting indipendently and inside the thick walls of Odontotermes mounds. In at least one species (B. mactus) soldiers are bimorphic, with conspicuosly different minor and majors. As is saddeningly common in termties, little is known about them.

Picture by Dr. Jan Sobotnik (Termite Research Team); Ebogo, Cameroon.
Shared with permission.

 

[Ultum4Spiderz]

In this beautiful pic by Dr. Jan Sobotnik we can observe a physogastric queen of Basidentitermes, surrouded by dark-gutted workers and protected by cute soldiers equipped with armored heads and conspicuous sabre-shaped mandibles (and almost surely a defensive secretion produced in the frontal gland aswell).

This is a genus of soil-feeding, non-pest termites commonly found in central Africa and haling from the Cubitermitinae subfamily that can be found both nesting indipendently and inside the thick walls of Odontotermes mounds. In at least one species (B. mactus) soldiers are bimorphic, with conspicuosly different minor and majors. As is saddeningly common in termties, little is known about them.

Picture by Dr. Jan Sobotnik (Termite Research Team); Ebogo, Cameroon.
Shared with permission.


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Wow so awsome , for some reason they get a bad reputation from pest species but I think there amazing just like ants, and there hierarchies and colony’s .

 

[ItalianTermiteMan]

Wow so awsome , for some reason they get a bad reputation from pest species but I think there amazing just like ants, and there hierarchies and colony’s .

Termites are very beneficial and in some cases truly fundamental creatures for their natural habitats, and while it's true that some species can cause severe damage to human structures or activities that's only a tiny minority of the around 3000 currently known species. Their behaviours and adaptations are very varied and interesting, however with the exception of the pests termites as a whole receive little attention by both researchers and the general public... and that's one of the reasons i post about them!