What Do Termites Have? 19 Things To Know About Their Bodies
Caleb Butler 
Termites are flying insects that use to live in the form of colonies. The wonderful thing is that they keep workers for working routines and soldiers for defending purposes. However, termites are a great problem for people as they are nuisance insects, and they can eat wood and damage the structure of houses. Additionally, termites eat bark mulch, paper, and dead tree roots and trunks as well. They disorder the soil by making homes in it. Furthermore, termites without wings are called a nymph. When nymph develops wings, they become alates, and they are the flying soldiers that are always ready to defend their workers.
19 Things To Know About Termites
1. Do baby termites have wings?
No, baby termites do not have wings. As a matter of fact, due to the absence of wings, they serve as workers and are called nymphs as well. Nymph termites are very responsible in their duty as they form structures.
2. Do Termites have tails?
Yes, termites do have a tail as well. Termites’ bodies are divided into two parts. The first part is the head, and the second part is the tail, head, and tail. Yet, there is no clear distinction of their body characters as they show many segments in the tail part.
3. Do termites have a king?
Yes, have a king. Typically every single termite is born with the ability to become king or queen. Termites produce Pheromone hormones with the help of that they can produce nymphs, swarmers, or alates. When swarmers shed their wings, they become king or queen.
4. Do termites have a queen?
Yes, termites have a queen as well. Termite queens are the older insects in their colony. To be honest, their one of the amazing thing is that they can live 25 to 50 years. The queen termite produces workers through the hormone, pheromone.
5. Do termites have a sense of smell?
Unfortunately not, unlike human beings, they do not have a sense of smell. However, they have developed antennae that help them in detecting scent fumes. In this way, termites used to smell odors of decaying trees and fungus.
6. Do Termites have an exoskeleton?
Yes, termites have an exoskeleton. Termites develop their new exoskeleton under their hard outermost skeleton. When termites enlargers in growth, their exoskeleton splits open, and the new exoskeleton emerges out and becomes harder.
7. Do Termites have an odor?
Yes, termites have an odor. Termites have a musty-smell odor that they leave behind to identify themselves that they are from their colony. When this odor reaches the detectable level, an infestation emerges out.
8. Do Termites have a brain?
Yes, they have. Now, like other human beings, they also have developed brains. When they detect smell odors through their antennae, termites feel the antennae through the olfactory region, which is the main part of their brain.
9. Do Termites have antennae?
Yes, termites have antennae also. Termites do not have the ability to sense a smell, so they used their straight antennae to detect the scent fumes. So they have antennae different from ants’ antennae that are bend.
10. Do termites have clear wings?
Yes, of course, termites have clear wings as well. They only have wings in the mating season. As soon as they mate, they shed their wings. After shedding and becoming couples, they land and become king or queen.
11. Do termites have eyes?
It is complicated to some extent as they do not use their eyes much unlike other pests. They always depend on their senses. Even though some termites are born without eyes. Kings and queens have their eyes with poor eyesight.
12. Do termites have larvae?
Yes, termites have larvae. When a termite, still it is a larva. After sometimes it turns into a pupa and then into a young termite having wings which are usually called a swarm. Larvae are very small, like the smaller version of workers as they are not fully matured.
13. Do termites have four wings?
Yes, they have four wings as well. Termites have two pairs of wings that mean they have four wings of the same length. As termites have two wing pairs, one is the upper pair and the second is the lower pair.
14. Do termites have pincers?
Yes, termites have a pair of pincers. The pincers are present on the bottom part of the termites’ body or behind the abdominal part. However, termites resemble ants in their body size, head, tail, and also pincers.
15. Do termites have a segmented body?
Yes, of course, termites have a segmented body. Termites’ bodies are divided into two different parts, head, and tail. The tail part is divided into many segments, due to which it becomes difficult for most of the researchers to identify their characters.
16. Do termites have stingers?
Fortunately, termites do not have a stinger like wasps and bees as well. However, termites have pincers that are present on the top-bottom part of the body.
17. Do Termites have stripes?
Yes, termites have stripes that are two in number. However, they are dark brown in color.
18. Do Termites have teeth?
Yes, termites also have teeth. The dry-wood termite soldiers have teeth with large mandibles or mouthparts. However, in some species they are absent.
19. Do termites have to return to the ground?
Yes, termites have to return to the ground when they shed their wings. As a matter of fact, when termites make couples in the air and shed their wings, then they have to return to the ground to become a king or queen of their own colony.
Conclusions
Hence, termites are pests that ruin the home structures and timbers. Termites belong to the class insect and they are from kingdom Animalia. Termites, in the scientific field, are called Isoptera and their order is Blattodea and also its higher classification. Termites are the social insects that are classified at the taxonomic rank of Isoptera. They also ranked in the epifamily of Termitoidae within the order of Blattodea.
