The passages of the mound are too small for her to enter and she spends her life in a central chamber laying eggs, as many as 10,000 per day, and being fed by the workers. The king is the only sexually active male and the three million or so inhabitants of the colony are all their offspring. During the rains, vast numbers of termites fly out from the mounds in the hopes of founding a new colony. They are eaten by many different animals, including man, and only those pairs that find shelter underground manage to establish themselves. Another species which lives in colonies, and is often found in old termite mounds, is the banded mongoose.
Banded mongooses are stocky little animals with wiry coats marked by dark vertical bands.
They live in packs of up to 30 individuals and can often be seen following one another very closely as they move like a huge snake winding through the bush. They sometimes follow the trails of elephants and buffaloes and eat the dung beetles and millipedes which they find in the piles of droppings. Banded mongooses also eat snails, lizards, mice, grasshoppers and locusts. The pack roams large areas looking for food and individuals keep in contact with each other by continually twittering. There are usually several dens within a pack's territory between which they wander.