page_title: Termite
section_title: Defence
hierarchical_section_title: Termite / Behaviour and ecology / Defence
caption_attribution_description: English: Nasute termite soldiers on a rotting log
context_page_description: Termites are eusocial insects that are classified at the taxonomic rank of infraorder Isoptera, or as epifamily Termitoidae within the order Blattodea. Termites were once classified in a separate order from cockroaches, but recent phylogenetic studies indicate that they evolved from cockroaches, as sister to Cryptocercus. Previous estimates suggested the divergence took place during the Jurassic or Triassic, however more recent estimates suggest they have an origin during the early Cretaceous with the first fossil records in the mid Cretaceous. About 3,106 species are currently described, with a few hundred more left to be described. Although these insects are often called "white ants", they are not ants, and are not closely related to ants.
  Like ants and some bees and wasps from the separate order Hymenoptera, termites divide as "workers" and "soldiers" that are usually sterile. All colonies have fertile males called "kings" and one or more fertile females called "queens". Termites mostly feed on dead plant material and cellulose, generally in the form of wood, leaf litter, soil, or animal dung.
context_section_description: Termites rely on alarm communication to defend a colony. Alarm pheromones can be released when the nest has been breached or is being attacked by enemies or potential pathogens. Termites always avoid nestmates infected with Metarhizium anisopliae spores, through vibrational signals released by infected nestmates. Other methods of defence include intense jerking and secretion of fluids from the frontal gland and defecating faeces containing alarm pheromones.
  In some species, some soldiers block tunnels to prevent their enemies from entering the nest, and they may deliberately rupture themselves as an act of defence. In cases where the intrusion is coming from a breach that is larger than the soldier's head, soldiers form a phalanx-like formation around the breach and bite at intruders. If an invasion carried out by Megaponera analis is successful, an entire colony may be destroyed, although this scenario is rare.
  To termites, any breach of their tunnels or nests is a cause for alarm. When termites detect a potential breach, the soldiers usually bang their heads, apparently to attract other soldiers for defence and to recruit additional workers to repair any breach. Additionally, an alarmed termite bumps into other termites which causes them to be alarmed and to leave pheromone trails to the disturbed area, which is also a way to recruit extra workers.
  The pantropical subfamily Nasutitermitinae has a specialised caste of soldiers, known as nasutes, that have the ability to exude noxious liquids through a horn-like frontal projection that they use for defence. Nasutes have lost their mandibles through the course of evolution and must be fed by workers. A wide variety of monoterpene hydrocarbon solvents have been identified in the liquids that nasutes secrete. Similarly, Formosan subterranean termites have been known to secrete naphthalene to protect their nests.
  Soldiers of the species Globitermes sulphureus commit suicide by autothysis – rupturing a large gland just beneath the surface of their cuticles. The thick, yellow fluid in the gland becomes very sticky on contact with the air, entangling ants or other insects that are trying to invade the nest. Another termite, Neocapriterme taracua, also engages in suicidal defence. Workers physically unable to use their mandibles while in a fight form a pouch full of chemicals, then deliberately rupture themselves, releasing toxic chemicals that paralyse and kill their enemies. The soldiers of the neotropical termite family Serritermitidae have a defence strategy which involves front gland autothysis, with the body rupturing between the head and abdomen. When soldiers guarding nest entrances are attacked by intruders, they engage in autothysis, creating a block that denies entry to any attacker.
  Workers use several different strategies to deal with their dead, including burying, cannibalism, and avoiding a corpse altogether. To avoid pathogens, termites occasionally engage in necrophoresis, in which a nestmate carries away a corpse from the colony to dispose of it elsewhere. Which strategy is used depends on the nature of the corpse a worker is dealing with (i.e. the age of the carcass).
caption: Nasute termite soldiers on rotten wood
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