After a long pause it's time for some more Termite's Corners, and today we have a truly impressive mountain species from high-altidude forests: Archotermopsis wroughtoni!
These large termites hails mainly from the mountainous forests of the Himalayan region (at heights of about 1500-2000 meters above sea level) but can also be found as south as northern Thailand.
They belong from the very small and primitive Archotermopsidae family and are related to the north American Zootermopsis (though i find them even more impressive than their cousins); and just like them favour nesting in damp rotting wood on the forest floor, though they are much less known and studied due to their distrubution further away from large concentrations of entomologists. As said they're very large termites, and exceeding 20mm (13/16 of an inch) is common for soldiers. The species form small colonies (as is the norm for Archotermopsidae), lacks a true worker caste and feed on coniferous trees. Beside the aforementioned Archotermopsis and Zootermopsis, the Archotermopsidae family contain a single other genus, Hodotermopsis, another very large and fierce-looking termite with a generally more eastward distribution.
Here we have an A. wroughtoni soldier surrounded by a few young pseudergates (false workers), who become
fully functional members of the colony well before reaching their maximum size. The former's mandible are truly impressive.
Pic by Dr. Jan Sobotnik (Termite Research Team); indian Himalayas.
Edited by ItalianTermiteMan2.0, March 25 2022 - 7:47 AM.
