Have you ever seen a close up of a termite? Aren’t they cute? And this species even has a nose to its already funny looking plump body. From a distance you would think the street of tiny creatures is ants, but when you look closer you see a difference. And there are lots of differences.
Our species belongs to the Nasutitermitinae, a subfamily of termites, easy to identify by the nose. This subfamily was created by L. Hare in 1937, while our termite was already described in 1898 as Termes longipes. The nose, in opposite to the spider’s nose here, has an important function. Only soldiers have it, and they are able to spray a defense liquid towards enemies. This liquid is based on terpenes, which is a class of molecules that are also found in essential oils. These liquids have a strong odor (think of methanol or limonene), and seem to have a good defense effect. I guess termites have to fight off all kinds of reptiles, amphibians, birds, rodents and arachnids. Totally different: Ants use other chemical weapons, like formic acid, alkaloids and piperidines.
There are two sorts of soldiers, the major and the minor ones, and one could think they have different jobs to do. This article describes it well, and it seems there is not much difference, except that the minor soldiers are a bit faster. But it is amazing how organized thee termites collect food. They walk in streets, from the nest to food-rich site. The soldiers stand along the outer edges to protect those workers. The workers do not just walk back and forth how they please, as it may look. Instead they walk in the center of the street when they carry food back home, and they walk left and right from the center, when they walk back out again. I guess so the most valuable termites, those who carry food, are protected not only by soldiers but also by layer of “empty” workers. As I said, there are thousands of species of termites, and it is by far not the standard setup to have two sorts of soldiers and one type of workers. It could also be three sorts of workers and one kind of soldier.
The fact that these termite forage during day time in streets or columns, like ants do, is not typical for termites, but is is typical for this species. You can even hear a crackle noise while they are eating dry leaves. The soldiers will keep an eye on you when you get close, that’s great when you take photos…
The most surprising facts of termites is their relationship. Basically termites (again we have close to 3000 species) are some sort of cockroaches! They share the same order – Blattodea. Together with praying mantises these three very different animals are in one superorder, Dictyoptera. You see there is no relationship to ants at all! Imagine large cockroaches would organize themselves like termites do! Wait for a post about a roach, there might be a surprise…
Totally different again: Ants belong to the order Hymenoptera, together with bees and wasps.
There is another huge difference between ant colonies and termites. While usually ant queens mate once, and then live alone, the queen of a termite colony is married to a king. I’d love to see what these two do all day, is there a time where they just rest and watch their kids working? Is a divorce possible, or do they sleep in different chambers after a fight? I’m sure there is a lot going on!
English 
Deutsch