Among the approximately 2,000 known species of termites, some are ecosystem engineers. The mounds built by some genera, for example Amitermes, Macrotermes, Nasutitermes, and Odontotermes, reach up to ...

Looking to nature can often provide inspiration, especially in construction. Researchers have studied how wind travels through the complex internal structure of a termite mound in hopes that it will ...

A soldier termite can tell which way to run in a crisis by sensing SOS-message time delays — only hundredths of a human eyeblink long — with its feet. Africa’s Macrotermes natalensis termite relies on ...

All species of termites are social insects, like ants. Entomologists have listed over 2000 species across the world and more than one-third of them live in Africa. This continent harbors 160 from the ...

Termite mounds. They may look like just a big pile of well-structured dirt but they are actually marvels of architecture and fill an unexpectedly important function in the ecosystems in which they ...

Melissa Breyer was Treehugger’s senior editorial director before moving to Martha Stewart. Her writing and photography have been featured in The New York Times, The Guardian, National Geographic, ...

Scientists studied the ‘egress complex’ of Macrotermes michaelseni termites from Namibia, which appears to promote moisture regulation and gas exchange. They showed that the layout of this ...

What’s less well-known is that humans are by no means the first species to figure out some way to cultivate plants and/or animals (or, as we’ll get to in a minute, other organisms) for their benefit.

Questions: Termite mounds of the genus Macrotermes are prominent features in African savannas, forming nutrient hotspots that support greater plant diversity, which is of higher nutritional value than ...

Humans have used drumming to relay messages across large distances for millennia – but they aren’t alone in this. It seems some species of termite do the same, by bashing their heads on the ground to ...

At a glance, a single worker of the genus Macrotermes is not a very complex creature—less than half an inch long, eyeless, wingless, with an abdomen so transparent you can spot the dead grass it ate ...

May 8 (UPI) --New research has revealed the genetic secrets behind the defiant longevity of termite queens. Typically, there is an inverse relationship with fertility and aging. The more offspring a ...