Termite Life Cycle

Termite Life Cycle

The model of a termite life cycle shows the three stages; the reproductives, the soldiers and the workers.

Reproductives possess compound eyes and are more or less brown due to their sclerotized cuticle. Developing reproductives have wings, wing stumps or wing buds. Reproductives can be further divided as follows:

• Alates, the young winged reproductives of both sexes. During swarm season 100 to 1000 alates leave the colony for mating and colonising flight. After mating a pair settle down at a suitable site to establish a new colony.
• De-alates, alates cast their wings after the colonising flight and turn into queens and kings. Only a few eggs are laid and brought up by a female de-alate. As the number of termites in the colony grows, the more workers are available to help the queen to care for the colony.
• Queen and King, are the main reproductive termites on a colony. A large queen may lay more than 1000 eggs per day. The life span of a queen can be as much as 50 years.
• Neotenics assist the queen in laying eggs, once her productivity decreases. When the queen has died, one of the neotenics takes her place.

Workers are sterile, wingless and blind males and females. Their cuticle is up pigmented and not hardened, therefore the termites are confined to a dark, moist environment. Workers build the nest and galleries, they fetch food and care for the colony. A worker's life span is only 1 to 2 years.

Soldiers are also sterile, wingless and blind males and females with an unpigmented, unsclerotized cuticle. Soldiers defend the colony from intruders by use of powerful jaws and by injecting a white sticky repellent from an opening in their head. Usually the number of soldiers is much smaller than the number of workers. The life span of a soldier is 1 to 2 years.