1982] 
N egret & Red ford — Termite Species 
103 
homogeneity in methodology used in calculating worker-soldier 
ratios in this study allows for precise comparison between species 
within the limits of accuracy of this method. The worker-soldier 
ratios were found to vary greatly between nests in some species (i.e., 
Procornitermes ) and remain quite constant in others (i.e., Velocitermes). 
The behavior of nasute soldiers, which respond to a break in the 
nest by rapidly recruiting to the break, can greatly alter the worker- 
soldier ratio calculated. As an example of this, on one occasion the 
number of soldiers counted from a piece of Nasutitermes mound, 
which had been excised from the surrounding mound but left in 
place for 30 seconds, was almost half again the number of soldiers 
counted from a piece taken from the same mound but removed 
immediately following excision. Although comparison can be made 
between the nine species of termites it must be noted that these data 
were taken during one period of the year and present a static picture 
of the proportions of workers and soldiers in given nests. It seems 
probable that in the species examined, as in other species (Sands 
1965), the worker-soldier ratio varies seasonally and possibly also 
with the age and size of the nest. 
It is evident from the data that some species have proportionally 
many more soldiers than other species. Even though the proportion 
of soldiers in a colony varies, in all cases (when there is a soldier 
caste) the soldier caste is largely responsible for the defense of the 
colony and has morphological features which allow it to do this. 
The type of defense used by soldier termites tends to be based on 
chemicals, mechanical defense or a combination of both. The sol- 
dier type using a chemical-based defense has vestigial mandibles 
(Table 2), is lighter than its workers (Table 1), and produces poten- 
tially toxic and repellent secretions which are ejected from the tip of 
a long tube or nasus at the front of the head (Nutting et al. 1974, 
Eisner et al. 1976; Howse 1975; Prestwich 1979). Of the termites 
studied in this work, Velocitermes, Nasutitermes and Cortaritermes 
fall into this category. The soldier type using a mechanical-based 
defense rarely produces defensive secretions and has a large head, 
and strong, sharp mandibles. Orthognathotermes is the only species 
within those here studied that has no development of the nasus, 
relying solely on its mandibles for defense. Syntermes, Cornitermes 
and Procornitermes all have strong mandibles which can pierce 
human skin, drawing blood, together with a greatly reduced level of 
