Desert subterranean termite
The desert subterranean termite is a small, pale yellowish-brown termite from the deserts of North America. Its family lives in a nest deep underground. It only comes out into the open air on special nights in summer.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
One colony can have from 45,000 to 300,000 workers, with a queen living deep underground.
It builds tubes of mud to travel safely over the ground, and some even hang down from ceilings.
It can get into a house through a tiny crack in concrete and turn wooden beams into something like a honeycomb.
On warm, humid summer nights, the young winged termites fly out of the nest to start new families.
Its soldiers have long, thin jaws to guard the nest.
Most asked questions about Desert subterranean termite
?Do desert termites eat houses?
They can. They get in through tiny cracks and eat wooden beams, fences and poles.
?Is the desert subterranean termite dangerous?
Not to people. It is only a danger to wood.
?What does the desert subterranean termite eat?
Dead wood, including dead cactus and fallen branches of desert trees.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Heterotermes aureus
- Group
- Cockroaches and termites
- Family
- Heterotermitidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Blattodea > Heterotermitidae
- Lives on
- North America
Where the facts come from
- Heterotermes aureus (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by (c) Alina Martin, some rights reserved (CC BY). CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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