1977] Leuthold & Bruinsma — Behavior in Hodotermes 
117 
in South Africa. This would bring light to the question of the un- 
known function of the female sternal gland, which is obviously dif- 
ferent in shape from that of workers and reproductive males (Fig. 
3) and yields the same trail-activity as a worker gland when ex- 
tracted and tested in the standard trail-bioassay. 
Discussion 
Dispersal flight in Hodotermes mossambicus was observed during 
full afternoon sunshine on open land. This is a rather exceptional 
behavior in termites (Nutting, 1969) and comprises considerable 
hazards of desiccation and predation. How do the alates prevent 
desiccation? According to Watson et al. (1971) the imagines have 
specialized water sacs (salivary reservoirs) which they fill after flight 
by active water uptake (in the laboratory). The authors did not say 
whether or not water is carried along during the flight. This would 
seem useful, in our opinion, to compensate for water loss during 
flight and post-flight behavior and for the initial development of 
the colony in case no other rain falls after swarming. As mentioned 
above, a low rainfall of only 1.3 mm may trigger flight for the fol- 
lowing day. This may occasionally be the only rain for a longer 
period of time. On the day of flight the soil surface is still slightly 
humid but probably not sufficiently so for the insects to imbibe 
free water. Therefore, it would be interesting to investigate the 
question of water storage in the hot semi-arid zones of Kenya. The 
hazard of predation on open land on sunny afternoons is consid- 
erable. Birds are extremely active and are efficient predators dur- 
ing the time of swarming. We have furthermore observed signifi- 
cant predation by lizards, ants, and salticid spiders. However, a 
good percentage of all the swarmed imagines escapes predation 
thanks to the very efficient system of pairing. Hodotermes mos- 
sambicus together with two other hodotermitid species ( Anacantho - 
termes sp: Clement, 1956) are, to my knowledge, the only observed 
species where the attracting partner is already digging while still 
single. Hodotermes mossambicus represents the only documented 
case in termites of airborne chemical sex attraction on long distance. 
In most observed cases pairing took place efficiently within seconds 
or a few minutes from alighting. If pairing was not successful by the 
time the male’s excavation had reached the depth to enable him to 
disappear underground, he stopped digging or started another hole. 
However, we did not observe such a case except when the ap- 
