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Termites are social insects that build large nests in soil, or wood and can cause damage to wooden structures. They are sometimes improperly called 'white ants'.
Several hundred to several million termites live together in one family. Their main goal is to work together in an organised system to find and use cellulose food source to produce a bigger colony.
Within the colony there are specialised members the workers, the soldiers, the alates (reproductive males and females), the queen, king and the nursery termites.
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The Worker
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Most workers have light coloured bodies and rarely grow more that 10mm long. They are like a grain of rice. They forage for food all day and all night. They rarely leave the dark tunnels that run from the colony through the soil and into the wooden frames of buildings. They attend to the queen and her brood, nymphs and they groom and feed one another and others in the colony.
Workers represent the majority of the colony population and are responsible for caring for eggs, constructing and maintaining tunnels, foraging for food and feeding and grooming of other caste members. They are white and soft bodied. Identification of the worker termite is where the "little white ant" comment comes in because the worker termite does look like a lightly colored ant.
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The Soldier
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Soldiers have long heads which are uniquely armoured, with powerful jaws and are responsible for defence, primarily against invading ants. Soldiers require workers to feed them.
Soldiers are responsible for defending the colony. They are white, soft bodied with an enlarged, hardened head containing two large jaws, or mandibles, which are used as a weapon against predators. Identification of the soldier termite can be done by looking at the head and noticing it is larger than a worker termite.
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The Alates
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Alates have developed wings and are released by the colony to go and form new colonies. They tend to swarm on warm humid evenings. A small number survive and they mate and then find a suitable place to start a new colony.
Alates are a caste whose primary function is to create new colonies. Alates are winged and leave the nest en masse (around October/November) on a still, warm night. Upon landing, alates �drop� their wings, source an alternate sex mate and look for suitable new nesting sites.
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The Queen
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The queen is the largest termite of the colony. It can grow up to about 10cm long. In order to move, she needs several hundred workers to push her. She becomes an egg laying machine. She lays up to 1000 eggs a day. She remains in her royal chamber where she is attended to and fed by the workers, and is fertilised by the king.
The Queen termite creates the colony by laying eggs and tending to the colony until enough workers and nymphs are produced to care for the colony. She can live for more than ten years and produce hundreds of eggs each year. Colonies can each have several million termites with the help of secondary queens who also produce eggs. Identification of the queen termite can be done by looking at her body as she will have a longer body that is lightly colored with a small head.
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The Nursery
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The eggs are removed from the royal chamber and transferred to a nursery by the workers. Here the brood (the eggs and nymphs) develops into other castes that the colony requires for development and survival; workers, soldiers and primary or secondary reproductives.
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