Black-winged subterranean termite
The black-winged subterranean termite is a little farmer that lives underground. It grows its own food: a special fungus, in a garden room inside its nest. The workers bring home bits of plants, chew them up and use them to feed the fungus garden.
How fast is it?
Fun facts
Its nest has many rooms joined by tunnels. The queen lives in one big room, and the main fungus garden is in another.
Workers walk as far as 35 metres from the nest to find plant bits, often at night.
Scouts leave a smell trail by touching the tip of their body to the ground, so the others can follow.
It builds tunnels of mud over its paths, so it can travel safely.
It can dig into earth dams and riverbanks so much that they fall apart.
Most asked questions about Black-winged subterranean termite
?What does the black-winged subterranean termite eat?
It eats a fungus that it grows itself in its nest.
?Is it dangerous?
Not to people. But it can damage crops, forests and dams.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Odontotermes formosanus
- Group
- Cockroaches and termites
- Family
- Termitidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Blattodea > Termitidae
- Lives on
- Asia
Where the facts come from
- Odontotermes formosanus (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 Natsumi Kanzaki, Wei-Ren Liang, Chun-I Chiu, Ching-Ting Yang, Yen-Ping Hsueh & Hou-Feng Li. CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.
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