Asian subterranean termite
The Asian subterranean termite is a small white termite that lives underground in enormous families. It comes from Southeast Asia but has travelled to many warm places around the world. It loves to eat wood, and that includes the wood in houses.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
One family can have more than a million termites out looking for food.
The queen lays eggs for many years. Her belly grows so huge that the workers have to feed her.
Soldiers have dark heads and can squirt a white sticky liquid from a small hole on the forehead to defend the nest.
On spring evenings, thousands of winged termites fly out together. After landing, they drop their wings and look for a place to start a new family.
It eats wood from the inside out and leaves only a thin skin on the outside.
Most asked questions about Asian subterranean termite
?Is the Asian subterranean termite dangerous?
Not to people. But it can do a lot of damage to houses and trees.
?What does the Asian subterranean termite eat?
Wood, paper, cardboard and sometimes even cloth.
?How did it get to Florida?
Scientists think it may have arrived on boats and then flown to land.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Coptotermes gestroi
- Group
- Cockroaches and termites
- Family
- Rhinotermitidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Blattodea > Rhinotermitidae
- Lives on
- Asia, Africa, North America, Australia and Oceania
- Also known as
- Philippine milk termite
Where the facts come from
- Coptotermes gestroi (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 Dulneth Wijewardana. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.
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