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The soldier caste has anatomical and behavioural specialisations, and their only real purpose is to defend the colony. Many soldiers have large heads with exceptionally altered strong jaws so enlarged they cannot feed themselves. Instead, like juveniles, they're fed by employees.5556 Fontanelles, simple holes in the forehead which exude defensive secretionsare a characteristic of the family Rhinotermitidae.57 Many species are readily identified using the qualities of the soldiers' bigger and darker head and large mandibles.53 Among certain termites, soldiers can use their globular (phragmotic) heads to obstruct their narrow tunnels.58 Different sorts of soldiers include minor and major soldiers, and nasutes, that have a horn-like nozzle frontal projection (a nasus).53 These unique soldiers can spray noxious, sticky secretions containing diterpenes at their enemies.59 Nitrogen fixation plays an important part in nasute nutrition.60.
The reproductive caste of a mature colony includes a prosperous female and male, known as the queen and king.61 The queen of this colony is responsible for egg production for the colony. Unlike in ants, the king mates with her for life.62 In certain species, the abdomen of the queen swells up radically to increase fecundity, a feature known as physogastrism.61 Depending on the species, the queen starts producing reproductive winged alates at a certain time of year, and huge swarms emerge from the colony when nuptial flight begins.
A young termite nymph. Nymphs first moult into employees, but others may farther moult to become soldiers or alates.
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Termites are often compared with all the social Hymenoptera (ants and various species of bees and wasps), but their differing evolutionary origins result in significant differences in life cycle. In the eusocial Hymenoptera, the workers are entirely female. Men (drones) are haploid and develop from unfertilised eggs, while females (both workers and the queen) are diploid and grow from fertilised eggs.
Depending on species, both male and female workers may have different functions in a termite colony.63.
The entire life cycle of a termite begins with an egg, but is different from that of a bee or ant in that it goes through a developmental process called incomplete metamorphosis, with egg, nymph and adult stages.64 Nymphs resemble little adults, and go through a series of go to this website moults as they grow.
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The development of nymphs into adults can take months; the time frame depends on food availability, temperature, and the general population of this colony. Since nymphs are unable to feed themselves, employees must feed them, but employees also get involved in the social life of the colony and have certain other tasks to achieve such as foraging, building or maintaining the nest or tending to the queen.5367 Pheromones regulate the caste system in termite colonies, preventing all but a very few of the termites from becoming fertile queens.68.
Termite alates only leave the colony when a nuptial flight takes place. Alate males and females pair up together and then land in search of a suitable spot for a colony.70 A termite king and queen do not mate until they find such a place. When they perform , they excavate a chamber large enough for both, shut up the entrance and move to mate.70 After mating, the pair never go outside and spend the rest of their lives in the nest.
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For instance, alates in certain species emerge during the daytime in summer while some emerge during the winter.71 The nuptial flight might also begin at dusk, when the alates swarm around regions with lots of lights. The time when nuptial flight begins depends on the environmental conditions, the time of day, humidity, wind speed and precipitation.71 The number of termites in a colony also fluctuates, with the larger species typically having 1001,000 individuals.
The queen only lays 1020 eggs in the very early stages of the colony, but lays as many as 1,000 per day when the colony is a few years old.53 At maturity, a primary queen has a fantastic capability to lay eggs. In certain species, the adult queen has a greatly distended abdomen and might produce 40,000 eggs per day.72 Both mature ovaries may have some 2,000 ovarioles each.73 The abdomen next increases the queen's body length to several times greater than before mating and reduces her ability to maneuver freely; attendant workers offer assistance.