Fungus Growing Termites

With thanks to Wildlife Camp, South Luangwa for this piece from their newsletter.

Termites. We’ve all heard of them, most of us have seen them, but very few of us know how fascinating they are! Fungus-growing termites (macrotermites) are the ones that build those massive mud mounds scattered all over Southern Africa. They produce a certain type of fungus within these nests which allow them to process cellulose without a gut-parasite commonly found in other primitive species. But did you know that within these mounds, magic happens? You see, just like people, termites prefer their homes air-conditioned. The mounds inside consists thousand of small tunnels, a central chimney, a food store, a royal cell, fungus combs and a nest chamber. It’s inhabited by a single queen, a slightly smaller king to fertilize her, workers to do all the daily jobs that termites need done and soldiers to protect the nest. Seeing as the queen can lay 25 000 eggs each day and live for up to 20 years, you can imagine that millions of termites live together in one such mound.

Macrotermes michaelseni

Air in the nest chamber, heated and depleted of oxygen from all the various activities that take place, rises up through the central chimney and into ventilation flues, just below the mound’s surface. Here, a carbon dioxide and oxygen exchange takes place and the air cools. Heat flowing from below pressurizes this air and the cooled down, oxygen-rich air follows another passageway into a cavity below the nest chamber, passing though specially constructed veins kept damp by the worker termites. This cools the air further, before it rises up again into the nest chamber. Amazing, isn’t it! And other animals think so too! Monitor Lizards (Varanus niloticus) are known to lay their eggs inside these mounds to ensure a constant incubation temprature. Baboons often use these nests as lookouts. And speaking of baboons.

Source: Wildlife Camp, South Luangwa, News March 2014.

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