A soldier termite can tell which way to run in a crisis by sensing SOS-message time delays — only hundredths of a human eyeblink long — with its feet. Africa’s Macrotermes natalensis termite relies on ...

Among the approximately 2,000 known species of termites, some are ecosystem engineers. The mounds built by some genera, for example Amitermes, Macrotermes, Nasutitermes, and Odontotermes, reach up to ...

All species of termites are social insects, like ants. Entomologists have listed over 2000 species across the world and more than one-third of them live in Africa. This continent harbors 160 from the ...

At a glance, a single worker of the genus Macrotermes is not a very complex creature—less than half an inch long, eyeless, wingless, with an abdomen so transparent you can spot the dead grass it ate ...

Physogastric termite queen (top left) of Macrotermes michaelseni being groomed by workers and the larger king, with soldiers in the foreground. Photo by Jan Sobotnik. Termites are among the most ...

Termites did not evolve complex societies by adding new genetic features. Instead, scientists found that they became more social by shedding genes tied to competition and independence. A shift to ...

Architecture, recycling and fungus cultivation are not inventions exclusive to humans! Termites living in Africa and South Asia have been advancing those innovations successfully for more than 30 ...