INTESTINAL PROTOZOA OF TERMITES. 



products and bacteria in the termite's intestine, or they may be 

 food-robbers and feed from the same table as their host ; in either 

 case, they are commensals, provided the host's table always 

 contains sufficient food for both host and parasite. Kofoid and 

 Swezy (1919) are the principal exponents of the commensalistic 

 relationship of termite protozoa. They remark: "One of the 

 most curious and unique faunal associations to be found among 

 the parasitic l protozoa is the group parasitic ' or commensal in 

 the intestinal tract of the social termites. . . . This distension 

 is caused by the vast numbers of parasitic and commensal pro- 

 tozoans which fill the lumen of the intestine. When this is 

 opened a thick milky fluid exudes. Under the lens this is found 

 to be composed of great quantities of these small forms, thickly 

 massed together, along with fragments of wood upon which the 

 host, as well as some of the commensals, feeds." 



T>. Symbionts. 



hums (1919) in studying the termite Archotermopsis li'rongh- 

 toni Desneux made sections of twelve worker-like females and 

 found numerous protozoa and nearly full sized ova ready for 

 fertilization, and in no instance did he observe even an indication 

 of oocyte degeneration. He also found well developed ovaries 

 in live soldiers, whose hind-intestines were filled with protozoa, 

 hums suggests that the presence of protozoa may be correlated 

 with the wood feeding habit of the termites. In the young 

 larva-, and in the queens and kings, which receive the fluid diet 

 from the other members of the colony, he found, as a rule, no 

 protozoa. In the older larva?, soldiers, workers, and sometimes 

 in the winged sexual forms, 2 protozoa are abundant and a wood 

 diet is the rule. 



1 This term, loosely used, means any organism which lives in or on another 

 organism. 



2 It is interesting here to note the statement of Snyder (1920), regarding one of 

 hi- cross-breeding experiments. He says, "A large series of young second form 

 l. in. il.- adults of Relifuliternifs flavipes, which possibly may have been fertilized by 



;id form males, were taken from a fairly small colony and placed with mature 

 lii-t form dealated males, which had not copulated, in small shallow cells in de- 



I wood sunken in moist sand in glass jars and tin boxes. 



After a period of ten days to two weeks all these second form females had died, 

 but the first form males were still living and were active; they evidently were pre- 

 l-.iii-d to forage for themselves, whereas the second form adults needed the care 

 and nourishment usually afforded them by the workers. Possibly the jaw muscles 



