THE TERMITES 



The termites, sometimes called " white ants ", are the least 

 familiar of the social insects to Europeans. Although one 

 or two species are found in France and Italy and fifty-five 

 in the United States, the group is essentially tropical, and 

 even in warmer lands the insects are usually inconspicuous 

 apart from some of their large nests. There are some remark- 

 able analogies with other social insects, and since the majority 

 of individuals are wingless, it is with the ants that they would 

 naturally be compared. Yet in reality the differences between 

 the termites and all other social insects are profound and 

 more important than the resemblances. It is almost true to 

 say that what they have in common is little more than the 

 minimum which allows us to apply the one word " social " 

 to both groups. 



The peculiarities of the termites are traceable to two basic 

 facts about their societies. First, males and females are 

 represented at all stages and in all castes, and this is associated 

 with a different method of sex-determination. Secondly, 

 development is gradual, over a series of moults, with no help- 

 less grub-stage. At least after a few moults, each individual 

 is a potential worker and its bodily form and functions can 

 partly be determined by the number of moults it has experi- 

 enced. Thus the whole caste system is much more flexible 

 and complicated. In the ants, apart from the exceptional 



169 



