Welcome to You Ask Andy

Bridgett Horton, age 10, of Huntsville, Ala., for her question:

HOW DO TERMITES TUNNEL THROUGH WOOD?

Termites regard wood as food and also as building material. They eat and build their endless tunnels at the same time. This is odd because wood is made mostly of a tough, indigestible material called cellulose. No animal large enough to be seen can feed upon it. Even the tunneling termites cannot digest it without help.

The world of nature includes a multitude of living plants and animals  and    all of them depend upon each other, either directly or indirectly. Termites depend upon teams of mini organisms which are too small for our eyes to see. Normally, these bitsy protozoa perform their duties by breaking up the woody remains of fallen trees. They perform this everyday miracle by changing the indigestible woody cellulose into sugary glucose.

Some of these busy protozoa thrive inside the bodies of termites, and the termites could not survive without them. The worker termite has sharp pincer jaws to bite off bits of wood, which she swallows. Inside her tummy, the protozoa convert the wood to glucose, which she can digest.

Hence, for the termites, digging a tunnel through a log is just as easy as sitting down to dinner. However, if the wood digesting protozoa are removed or destroyed, the termites perish. This is not likely because their tiny helpers teem throughout the nest.

When the broods of young termites hatch from their eggs, they are minicopies of the adults. The workers feed them mouth to mouth. So even the babies are sure to get their share of wood digesting protozoa. Then the tiny creatures soon begin chewing wood for themselves, and they shed their skins as they grow bigger.

The termite nest is shared by hundreds and perhaps thousands of workers. There is at least one egg laying queen, a king. and several princes and princesses. There also is an army of soldier termites to defend the family against ants and other enemies.

Some people call them white ants, though termites are not related to the ants. Their nearest relatives are the cockroaches, and their ancestors were on earth at least 250 million years ago. In the modern world there are 1,700 different termites, and 55 of them are found in North America.

 

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