2 replies to this topic

[ItalianTermiteMan2.0]

Here he have a minor worker of a Macrotermes species i pictured in Camerun surrounded by several of her major soldier sibilings. The bite of the latters where extremely painful, not only for the ease their slashing-type mandibles could but trough human skin but also for the cocktail of benzoquinones they abundantly secreted into the wound, which burned very sharply.

 

This fungus-growing species build large and majestic mounds with a very complex interna architecture; i've also seen their mature queen and it was truly massive! I'll likely talk more about them in a proper post with a full photogallery (queen included), but for now here's this snippet about this amazing critters.

 

 

 

Edited by ItalianTermiteMan2.0, December 17 2023 - 6:10 PM.

[LC3]

First off, very lovely photos and congrats on your endeavours. Looking forward to your upcoming photo gallery even though I’m not very active around here anymore.

Willing to wager these large headed poorly sclerotized Macrotermes with small pronotums and short flat mandibles (major soldier) are M. bellicosus. This description seems to be in line with the literature (i.e, A Revision of the Genus Macrotermes from the Ethiopian Region [1]), with Dr. Scheffrahn's termite gallery (termitediversity.org), and images where minor workers are doing the nest building (=trait apparently unique to M. bellicosus). In light of this, I'm skeptical of the specimen labeled as M. bellicosus by Dr. Sabotnik on his website (termiti.czu.cz) and furthermore, I recall that picture originally being labeled as "Macrotermes jeanneli", a synonym of M. subhyalinus. However, looking through the literature/etymology catalogued on the Treatise on Isoptera[2], it seems that M. jeanneli has also been misIDed/synonymized as M. bellicosus prior and via proxy, as in, M. subhyalinus in general is also commonly misIDed/synonymized with M. bellicosus.

Furthermore, despite being a very variable species, I've only noticed Macrotermes with these characteristics occupy the range described for M. bellicosus; roughly a band from the west coast of West Africa to short of East Africa and not extended past south of the Congo Basin. The major soldiers of sympatric populations, which are almost definitely M. subhyalinus (apparently not monophyletic [3]) in comparison, seem to en average, have more upturned mandibles, narrower heads (more straighter sides), wider pronotums, and are more sclerotized. Sometimes they have longer mandibles.


1: A Revision of the Genus Macrotermes from the Ethiopian Region (https://www.biodiver....org/part/78394)
2: Treatise on Isoptera (https://digitallibra...da-82f2cff9235f)
3: Divergence times in the termite genus Macrotermes (Isoptera: Termitidae) (https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/17714956/)

Edited by LC3, December 30 2023 - 1:01 PM.

[ItalianTermiteMan2.0]

First off, very lovely photos and congrats on your endeavours. Looking forward to your upcoming photo gallery even though I’m not very active around here anymore.

Willing to wager these large headed poorly sclerotized Macrotermes with small pronotums and short flat mandibles (major soldier) are M. bellicosus. This description seems to be in line with the literature (i.e, A Revision of the Genus Macrotermes from the Ethiopian Region [1]), with Dr. Scheffrahn's termite gallery (termitediversity.org), and images where minor workers are doing the nest building (=trait apparently unique to M. bellicosus). In light of this, I'm skeptical of the specimen labeled as M. bellicosus by Dr. Sabotnik on his website (termiti.czu.cz) and furthermore, I recall that picture originally being labeled as "Macrotermes jeanneli", a synonym of M. subhyalinus. However, looking through the literature/etymology catalogued on the Treatise on Isoptera[2], it seems that M. jeanneli has also been misIDed/synonymized as M. bellicosus prior and via proxy, as in, M. subhyalinus in general is also commonly misIDed/synonymized with M. bellicosus.

Furthermore, despite being a very variable species, I've only noticed Macrotermes with these characteristics occupy the range described for M. bellicosus; roughly a band from the west coast of West Africa to short of East Africa and not extended past south of the Congo Basin. The major soldiers of sympatric populations, which are almost definitely M. subhyalinus (apparently not monophyletic [3]) in comparison, seem to en average, have more upturned mandibles, narrower heads (more straighter sides), wider pronotums, and are more sclerotized. Sometimes they have longer mandibles.


1: A Revision of the Genus Macrotermes from the Ethiopian Region (https://www.biodiver....org/part/78394)
2: Treatise on Isoptera (https://digitallibra...da-82f2cff9235f)
3: Divergence times in the termite genus Macrotermes (Isoptera: Termitidae) (https://pubmed.ncbi....h.gov/17714956/)

 

I agree! These are definitely compatible with the bellicosus i saw on Inaturalist, and in the same habitat i did find another species consistent with subhyalinus (larger, more sclerotized, wider pronotum, more "rectangularish" heads), tough i wasn't confident enough in IDying either at species level in my post. With your excellent comment, i think a "cfr bellicosus" is in order! The good thing is that i collected specimens of these (and many other species) and i'll receive them from Prague when Mr. Sobotnik has time to send them to me, so a precise ID will be possible.

 

Taxonomy aside, they really deserve their name: super aggressive and a bite to remember! An interesting thing i wasn't expecting was the behaviour of the species, very different than that of the M. gilvus i saw in Asia: it was these major soldiers who acted as a first line of defence, actively rushing out in large numbers on the exterior of the mounds when i started excavating them. Apparently only majors did this, minor soldiers were much less visible and veered much more on positional defence.