CHAPTER XVII 

 THE ISOPTERA 



These insects are commonly called White Ants or Termites, the 

 former name being used because though not nearly related to ants, 

 they live in colonies and in many of their ways .resemble these insects. 



The White Ants, as their name suggests, are whitish in color (the 

 winged adults may be brown or blackish). The group is essentially a 

 tropical one but some of them are found as far north as Canada. The 



FIG. 74. Castes of a Termite colony: a, queen; b, male; c, worker; d, soldier. (After 

 Jordan and Kellogg, Evolution and Animal Life, D. Appleton and Co.) 



tropical species differ so markedly in many of their ways from the north- 

 ern ones that separate descriptions almost seem necessary. In all, 

 however, there is a colonial life and a division of the insects into several 

 groups or " castes." 



A colony normally consists of one or more males or " kings;" one or 

 sometimes several females or " queens" and a variable but generally 

 large number of other individuals, nearly always at least, of two castes, 

 known as workers and soldiers (Fig. 74). These may be individuals of 

 either sex which have not developed to reproductive maturity. During 

 a short period of their lives the kings and queens have fully-developed 

 wings, four in number, long, narrow and quite similar in appearance, 



91 



