CHAPTER V 



THE PROTOZOA OF TERMITES 



By 



Harold Kirby, Jr. 

 The University of California 



INTRODUCTION 



Lespes in 1856 was the first to report an abundant fauna of 

 PROTOZOA in the intestine of a termite, Reticulitermes lucifugus, in 

 France. In the latter part of the century, Leidy described the 

 fauna in Reticulitermes Havipes of Eastern United States, and 

 Grassi made known the flagellates of the two termites found in 

 Italy, Reticulitermes lucifugiis and Kalotermes flavicollis. Since 

 that time, and especially in the last fifteen years, protozoologists 

 have described from these insects obtained in various parts of the 

 world many unusually complex flagellate protozoa, together with 

 a much smaller number of ciliates, sporozoa and amoebae. His- 

 torical reviews of the subject have been given by Imms (1919), 

 Koidzumi (1921), Cleveland (1923a) and Kirby (1926a) and a 

 bibUography of the protozoa of termites up to 1926 is given in the 

 last-named publication. 



There is probably no other instance in which a protozoan in- 

 fection is at the same time as abundant, diverse, constant in com- 

 position and universal in practically all individuals of the species 

 as in this infection in termites. Except at certain stages in the life 

 history of the insect, the flagellates in the intestine are as char- 

 acteristic of the termite as any part of its anatomy. None of them 

 are known to encyst. They are passed directly from individual 

 to individual in some manner which is not understood. Many of 

 the flagellates feed on particles of wood, some may ingest bacteria 

 and small protozoa and others absorb dissolved nutriment. As 

 shown by Cleveland (see 1926) the xylophagous flagellates appear 



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