Social insects

• Social insects are specialized group of insects of the same species which live together in organized
community known as colonies. Or
• Social insects are insects which live in communities with highly developed division of labour.
 Characteristics

• They live together in colony

• They show or display division of labour
• They show distinct castes
• Members communicate with one another within the colonies.
• Termites
• Bees
• Ants
• Wasps
Termites
• Termites are social insects that live in loosely associated societies called colonies.
• A colony is a collection of individuals that cooperate in the rearing of young and that share
resources.
• The skin covering the body is soft, delicate, thin and highly sensitive.
• Termites are nocturnal and belong to the insect order Isoptera
 Termites

• They live in a well organized community with division of labour.

• The termite colony lives in a nest which may be tunnels in timber or dead wood, soil or
trees.

• The nest is called termitarium.

• A termite community is made up of several specialized individuals called castes.

• A caste is one of the distinct individuals in a colony.

• Members of each caste have different jobs and different physical features to play a role for the benefit of
the community.
Termite
• All the various individuals in termite colony are grouped into three castes as follow
• Reproductives are the colony members responsible for mating and laying eggs.
• There are three different types of reproductive termites.
• (a) king (b) queen (c) and long winged reproductive.
• Primary reproductives are the queen and king
• Workers.
• Soldiers.
 The king

• The king is a reproductive individual that is fertile.

• It has no wing.
• It is smaller than the queen
• The function of the king is to mate or fertilize the egg of the queen.
• Each colony has only one king at a time.
• The king is the second largest in the nest
• It has sex organ, eyes and pigments.
 QUEEN

• The queen is a reproductive female individual and the largest in the colony.
• It has a small head and small thorax with very big abdomen.
• It can develop to about 10cm.
• The head bears a pair of compound eyes and a few ocelli and a pair of short antennae.
• The abdomen is large and swollen with eggs.
• There is usually only a queen at a time in a colony.
 Queen

• The queen is the largest of all the castes

• The mouthparts are modified into chewing mouthparts.
• It is made up of mandibles, maxillae with maxillary palps and a labium with labial palps.
• The labrum is a small, tough plate which covers these mouthparts.
• The function of the queen is lay egg.
Queen
 Long winged reproductive.

• The winged reproductives have sex organ, eyes and wings and are pigmented.
• They have two pairs of membranous wings.
• The wings are longer than the body.
• They can become new queen or king in a new colony after a nuptial or wedding flight .
 SOLDIERS

• Soldiers are physically and sexually immature males and females whose primary function is to defend
the colony.
• Soldiers are distinguished by their enlarged, darker coloured heads and large, long and hard
mandibles that they use to ward off enemies.
• Soldier termites are wingless, blind, and otherwise soft-bodied.
• They are not capable of feeding themselves, workers provide them with regurgitated food.

• They have a pair of antennae.

• Long legs for fast movement

 soldiers

• The soldiers are of two types.

• Madibulate have large and strong heads with mandibles which serve as weapons of attack and
defense.
• The Nasute soldiers however, have large rounded heads with poisonous glands which produce
unpleasant poisonous liquid substances used as defensive mechanism.
 WORKER

• Worker termites are physically and sexually immature males and

females and are the most numerous castes.
• They are wingless, white in colour and possess a hard brown head bearing biting and chewing
mouthparts and a pair of antennae.
• The thorax bears three pairs of small legs.
• Workers blind and probably only perceive changes in light intensity.
• They are called workers because they perform most of the labour
associated with colony maintenance.
• The workers of some species have cellulose digesting protozoans in their intestines which digest cellulose
eaten by workers after which the food is regurgitated to feed other castes in the colony.
• They are involved in numerous tasks such as locating and colonizing food resources.
• excavating, repairing, and building galleries and shelter tubes.
• feeding, grooming, and caring for young termites, reproductive, and soldiers.
• Workers go about to collect seeds, grass and vegetation, these are cut up and stored in special cells.
 workers

• The termites cultivate fungi in the nest.

• The fungi are cultivated on the termite's faeces and are referred to as fungal garden.
• The fungi cultivated have the ability to digest cellulose after which the workers feed and use the rest to
feed other members.
 Function of workers

• They build and repair the termitarium

• They provide food for other member of the colony e.g. large queen and soldier
• They look after the nymphs
• They feed the nymph and the queen.
 Nest

• The nests are made up of bits of soil cemented with termite saliva and baked in the sun.
• The nest provides protective and constant environment by ensuring constant temperature and
humidity.
• The high humidity keeps the inside soft and moist as compared to the outside, which is hot and dry.
• A high humidity is important because the termites possess a thin exoskeleton and the high humidity
prevents evaporation.
 Nest

• The king and queen lives permanently in the royal chamber. Their bodies are too large to fit through
the passage ways.
• Inside is a maze of passages that lead to a number of chambers, all with specific uses.
• The passages, fungus combs, and air ducts at the top work to regulate the temperature, humidity, and
freshness of the atmosphere.
• when the termites want to leave the nest, workers build covered passages for them
• The nests of certain tropical species are huge mound-like structures, often about six meters in height.
• Ventilation and drainage are provided, and heat required for hatching the eggs are obtained from
the fermentation of organic matter, which is stored in the chambers serving as nurseries.
 Feeding

• Termites' food comes from cellulose.

• Cellulose is a tough, resilient compound found in plants.

• Cellulose is what gives trees and shrubs their structure.

• Termites don't produce cellulase.

• Instead, they rely on microorganisms that live in their hindgut to get cellulose digested.

• These organisms include bacteria and protozoans.

• They are in a symbiotic relationship with the termites -

- neither the termites nor the microorganisms could live without the other.
 Feeding

• Fungus gardens are grown in chambers located near the centre of the nest, they communicate with a royal
chamber in which the king and queen live.
• The termites cultivate the fungi in a fungus garden, comprising a few hundred fungus combs, structures
built from chewed up grass and wood, and inoculated with fungal spores.
• The queen is fed by workers only on saliva and fungal hyphae.
 Nutrition

• The culture in the nest aids in the breakdown of cellulose and lignin into a more nutritious compost
which serves as the termites actual food.
 Reproduction

• The life cycle of the termite begins with a mating flight

• After a rainfall, winged reproductives fly out of the nest and are often attracted to light.
• This is known as nuptial or wedding flight.
• During the nuptial flight they find a mate
• They then fall to the ground and shed their wings
• One male and one female pair, referred to as royal couple, search for a sheltered place either in wood or
on the ground.
• The male becomes the king and the female, the queen.
 Reproduction

• Mating occurs in about a week’s time.

• The queen lays about 4,000 eggs a day.
• In certain cases the queen can lay about 30.000 eggs a day.
• The eggs are oval, elongated, smooth and pale coloured.
• Eggs hatch into larvae and moult to develop into workers, soldiers, and primary reproductive.
• Development is gradual and metamorphosis is incomplete.
• The nymphs which hatch out from the eggs are like the adults except that they are smaller in size,
have no traces of wings.
• The king and the queen initially take care of the eggs and feed the nymphs until the first set of workers
emerge to take over these functions.
 Reproduction

• When either the king or the queen becomes too old, it is replaced by a winged reproductive which has
not gone on a nuptial flight.
• The proportion of the subsequent development of the nymphs into workers, soldiers or reproductives
depends on the need of the nest at the time.
 Reproduction

• Hormonal substances secreted at the body surface of the royal pair serve to inhibit the production of
primary reproductives.
• These substances, which are licked off by the workers in the process of grooming, and are transmitted,
probably with food, to other members of the colony.
• In the absence of these inhibitory exudates after the death of the royal pair, nymphs at a particular stage
in their moulting cycle rapidly develop reproductive organs and become fertile.
• A similar process appears to operate in maintaining the required number of soldiers in the community.
• After this time, the king and the queen only reproduce and are also now fed by the workers.

• The king and the queen live permanently in a

royal chamber.
 Differences between winged Termite

and winged Ant.

• A winged termite can be easily distinguished from a winged ant by the following characteristics

• winged ants have distinctly elbowed antennae

• While termite have straight antenna.

• winged ants have a distinct constriction between body regions while termites lack constriction “waist”.
• winged ants have two pairs of wings, but the front pair is larger than the hind pair while termites
have two pairs of equal size wings.
 Economic Importance Of Termites

• Increase humus contents of the soil

• Aeration of the soil by their burrowing activities underground.
• Source of protein: the winged reproductives are eaten by some people.
• Termitarium is used in making tennis court
• They cultivate fungi some of which are edible mushrooms.
• Destroy wooden structures such as buildings, furniture, telephone and electrical poles.
• They are also pest of crops because they destroy growing crops and also cause postharvest
loss to grains
• It causes financial loss as the use of insecticides to control them is expensive
 CONTROL OF TERMITES

• Mud and wooden buildings should be treated concrete foundation

• Buildings should be checked regularly in order to prevent any invasion by termite.
• Hard wood should be used in building and general construction.
• In fields termitaria should be destroyed by pouring kerosene into it.

• Nests can also be fumigated by kerosene.

• The queen should be searched out from established colonies and killed. Etc.