Termites Introduction
Termites are primitive insects; they live in colonies, which have a social organization similar to that of ants. A colony consists of several castes and are physically different from each other. Each caste has their own particular duties to perform. Typically the castes consists of workers, soldiers, reproductive, king and queen termites.
King & Queen
The king and queen are the original winged reproductive (alates) that left their parent colony during the swarming flight. Their function within the colony is reproduction. A pair of winged reproductive's (alates), after leaving the parent colony, drop to the ground, shed their wings (de - alate), seek out a suitable nesting site, mate and commence to form a new colony.
The pair must also feed and care for their young until there are sufficient workers and soldiers to take other duties of the colony.
Physogastric Queen
The queen, once relieved of her parental duties by the young worker caste, in some species becomes larger, due mainly to the enlargement of her ovaries. The enlargement of the abdomen is known as physogastry & occurs in many species of the families Rhinotermitidae & Termitidae. The number of eggs laid by these queens is often more than a thousand each day. The queen, because of her size, will normally have her own cell within the nest enlarged to accommodate her size, this cell is commonly known as the royal cell.
Worker
The workers are male and females whose sexual organs have not developed. The worker caste forms the largest number of all the castes in the colony. They perform all the tasks of the colony except defence and reproduction. It is the worker caste of the pest species that do the familiar damage to our homes. Soldier Worker Winged Reproductive (alate)
Soldier
Soldiers are the most distinctive, hence the easiest to identify of the species. Their main function is to defend the colony against predators, mainly other insects such as ants. They have well-developed snout (nasute). The species shedorhinotermes spp. is one of the few species to have two classes of soldiers, that is, the major soldier and minor soldier. Both the major and minor soldiers will appear in mature and well-developed colonies.
Nasute soldiers; note where the head has been drawn into a snout
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