Termes fatalis
FAMILY
Termitidae
TAXONOMY
Termes fatalis Linnaeus, 1758, Para-Maribo, Suriname.
OTHER COMMON NAMES
None known.
PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
Small, alate about 0.3 in (8.5 mm) with wings; brown, with large apical teeth. Soldiers monomorphic, with pale yellow, elongate, parallel-sided heads with hornlike tubercle projecting forward. Mandibles slender, elongate and rodlike; apices cupped together. Soldier labrum is narrow and rectangular with short points on anterior corners.
DISTRIBUTION
Northeastern South America, in Guyana, Suriname, Trinidad, and Amazonia, Brazil.
HABITAT
Rainforest.
BEHAVIOR
Colonies are meta-eusocial. Soldiers capable of violently snapping their mandibles, forcing them to cross downward, pushing the pointed head upward into ceiling of tunnel or nest chamber opening. Presumed function of snapping behavior is to lock soldiers' head into tunnel to block the advance of predators such as ants or other termites. Species of the subfamily Termitinae often build short, turretlike nests of hard dark fecal material. Nests composed of numerous interconnected cells. Little known about nesting behavior, but some species in the subfamily build nests inside mounds and nests of other termites.
FEEDING ECOLOGY AND DIET
Humivorous. Large apical teeth and molar without grinding ridges suggest diet of very soft decayed wood or humus.
REPRODUCTIVE BIOLOGY
Nothing known.
CONSERVATION STATUS
Nothing known.
SIGNIFICANCE TO HUMANS
First species of termite formally named by Linnaeus in 1758, thus has taxonomic significance as ordinal type.
