Termite mother: she is huge, lives 50 years and gives birth every 10 seconds (9 photos)

The life of a termite mound begins with a couple in love and the only flight in their lifetime. It ends with finding a home. The termites have a sweet spot in the log. Or something else suitable for digging into and arranging a place for the future nursery. Don’t worry, in a couple of decades a whole palace will appear on the site of a rotten stump!





The queen is several dozen times larger than any worker termite. In essence, it is a giant egg factory.

At first, the female termite is quite modest in size and lays eggs in moderate quantities: 10-20 eggs per day. But the older she gets, the more her abdomen grows.



Queen's wedding wings. Oh, youth, then she was so slender!

After a couple of years of continuous labor, the uterus reaches a truly royal size - up to 11 centimeters. Despite the fact that the size of a soldier termite is only 2 centimeters! With such dimensions, the matron can no longer fly or even just walk.





- Children, don’t be naughty, I won’t run after you. Because I can't move.

The queen's size is not for beauty: having become proficient in the art of reproduction, she begins to scribble eggs with the energy of a machine gun: one piece every 10-20 seconds. She gives birth to three to four tens of thousands of descendants a day! By comparison, a queen ant lays “only” 800 eggs a day.



Wow, how many brothers and sisters I have!

Do you think this is enough for termites? Of course not! In especially large colonies, the ranks of workers and soldiers are replenished not by one, but by several queens at once! Unlike other social insects, termite queens do not kill rivals for the throne. This is because the additional queens are complete copies of the founding queen.

The female lays princess eggs using parthenogenesis. That is, without the participation of a male. Thus, genetically they are 100% identical to their mother. This means that the struggle for power is absolutely meaningless! Together they create termite mounds numbering tens of millions of individuals! It's time to call queens not queens, but empresses.



Well, why not a palace?

To prevent a crowd of subjects from starting a riot, at the moment of birth the queen instills “hurray patriotism” in her people at a chemical level. It secretes a special substance - heneicosane. This chemical compound is perceived by workers as a “royal” smell. Scientists conducted an experiment: they coated tiny mannequins with the substance. As a result, the workers treated them with the same respect as the queen.



Everyone has their own idea of ​​family comfort...

It must be said that for termites, hyper population production is a necessary measure. Their economy is complex, well organized, they need a lot of working hands, and there are more than enough natural enemies. Termites are eaten by everyone who passes and flies past. By the way, the queens themselves are also eaten with pleasure. Even people! Matki is considered a delicacy in many parts of the world. People who have eaten the queen's treat call the taste richly fatty, like foie gras.



Lunch with the Queen? Or from the queen?

But while the matron is alive, she is not alone in her labors. A devoted spouse is nearby all the time. Unlike many other insects, the king, having once completed his immediate duties, does not throw away his skates, but remains with his girlfriend. And, imagine, these tiny insects are monogamous and remain faithful to each other no worse than swans. And at the same time, they live incomparably longer than other six-legged brothers.



Darling, don't you think I'm getting fat? Darling, for me you are beautiful in any form! In the photo there is a king and a young queen, who has not yet grown much in size.

Some couples share grief and joy with each other from 20 to 50 years. And under ideal conditions, the life of termites could last a century. This means that the royal couple would have celebrated not only a golden or diamond wedding, but also one that we humans have never seen in our dreams. And even more so for insects. Termite queens are the longest living insects in the world!



If you count, then one mother catches several dozen generations of her children. Simultaneously creepy and amazing!

The secret of longevity is hidden not in the blue blood of monarchs, but in genes. The scientists analyzed the queens and workers for cellular damage due to oxidation. This is the primary mechanism of aging in both insects and humans. And it turned out that the uterus, despite its age, had young cells! This is all thanks to the work of two genes, which are 7 times more active in queens than in workers. One is responsible for the production of an antioxidant that destroys toxic substances; the second helps control cell signaling.