COLONIZING FLIGHTS AND ASSOCIATED 
ACTIVITIES OF TERMITES. 
I. THE DESERT DAMP-WOOD TERMITE 
PA RA NE O TERM ES SIMPLICICORNIS 
( KALOTERM ITIDAE ) 1 
By W. L. Nutting 
Department of Entomology, University of Arizona 
Introduction. — The swarming period provides the only oc- 
casion when observations can be made undisturbed on, many species 
of termites. Flights involving large numbers of alates, apparently 
synchronized with particular seasons, are a conspicuous phenomenon 
in many parts of the world and well known to local inhabitants. 
Yet only the most limited information is available on the flights of 
a small percentage of the commoner species, i.e., the months and 
time of day during which flights are staged, and perhaps an associa- 
tion with rainfall. Not until recent years have many real efforts 
been made to correlate the dispersal flights of termites (Snyder, ’6i) 
or the nuptial flights of ants (Kannowski, ’59; Talbot, ’56; ’64) — 
which appear to be similarly related to definite weather patterns — 
with even the most obvious environmental factors. The difficulties 
involved in gathering more detailed intelligence, however, become 
apparent after a season or two of field study. 
The following account is the result of an increasingly successful 
series of observations made on one of twelve different species in a 
single area over a period of seven years. It summarizes field notes 
on 78 separate flights together with a preliminary analysis of accom- 
panying weather data. The ultimate objective of such a study should 
be the elucidation of the physical and physiological factors which 
trigger the flights of a species, both seasonally and daily, over its 
entire range. At present the bulk of the data is climatological and 
far outweighs that on the behavior of the termite itself; the study 
is thus perforce largely descriptive. Succeeding papers in this series 
should gain in significance from data being gathered concomitantly 
on additional species in the families Kalotermitidae, Hodotermitidae, 
Rhinotermitidae and Termitidae. Although the actual flight stimuli 
may eventually prove very different from those which suggest them- 
selves from time to time, this descriptive state should provide a start- 
ing point for other more profitable approaches to the subject. 
Arizona Agricultural Experiment Station Journal Article No. 1112. 
Manuscript received by the editor February 25, 1966 
