February 25, 2014 • 41 mins
Their soft white bodies look creepy and, to be sure, they are, but termites are pretty amazing bugs. They build ventilation systems into their mounds, poop on their enemies and grow mushrooms. Learn all the neat stuff you didn't know about termites here.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry So it's
stuff you should know, how d Hey, hey, this is
a fan recommendation. Really. Yes. Aaron Mullins from the Max
(00:25):
Funcan Cruise that I went on last year. Uh works
with termites. I believe, like a termite circus. Yeah, he
runs a termite circus. No, but he said, he said, dude,
you got it. You should do termites. He said they're
really fascinating. They are pretty fascinating. And I said, yeah,
we'll get to it, buddy, and uh, here we are.
So Aaron Mullins, this one's for you. Way to go. Mullins. Yeah,
(00:47):
this is a good suggestion. I mean it's termites. I
can't tell you how many people went, I'm not listening
to that one. Well, they just lost out. And all
of you, dear listeners, the ones who are hearing our
voices talk about termites, you are very blessed. Yeah, it was,
you know, the fact of the podcast thing that we
like to do. I had a hard time picking out
like five or six don't give them away. Let's just
(01:11):
take him in striy it. Huh, it's a chuck. Are
you familiar with this one. He's not gonna have a
good intro. I got a good intro. As a matter
of fact, this is a Tracy Wilson joint. She had
a pretty good intro. She points out that termites are
kind of paradoxes, or the concept of termites is a paradox,
(01:32):
and that they are extremely um vulnerable to changes in temperature,
changes in humidity. They can dry out and die. They
die like dehydration pretty easy. Yeah, they're not super hardy yet.
They they but they can be. They can. But yeah,
they can also like fell an entire house given enough time. Um.
(01:54):
They they develop wings, some of them do. But they're
not really good at flying a lot like cicadas. Oh yeah,
you remember, like we saw those things firsthand, just flying
terribly um. And then soldier termites for example, Yeah, very strong,
huge mandibles and pincers. Yeah. Yeah, they can't even feed themselves.
(02:15):
Were like big babies. There's just a lot of things
going on termites. You think you understand them, Oh, but
what about this part? Bam, that's kind of what happens
when you look into them. That's why they're fascinating. That's
why Aaron Mullins. Mullins recommended it. Yeah, I agree. Should
we get into it? You know what said is there's
(02:36):
just gonna be an awkward pause in the podcast because
people couldn't see me looking at you, like, what's the
guy's name? That's right, we can we can tighten that
up with the magic of editing. Jerry, will you tighten
that up? No, says Jerry. Alright, so yes, let's get
into this, Chuck. Let's talk termites, all right? I guess. Uh.
Usually when we do these, um we've done cocka, roaches
(02:56):
and fleas and uh or do we do flease? We
did ticks? Yeah, we've done ticks for done bees. I
don't have we not done fleaze? We need to do that?
Are you sure? Yeah? Remember tis was like the most
boring episode we've ever done. No, but people went crazy
for it. It's because of the T shirt offer. Remember
if you've made it all the way through that, when
you've got a free T shirt instead of anyway, we
(03:18):
usually start with anatomy, and that's a good place for termites.
Obviously they are insects. And you're gonna find them. You
can really find them anywhere where it doesn't you don't
go into a hard freeze in the winter. But they
are most common in tropical environments, were most abundant. I guess,
well they make their range all the way into temperate
climates though too. Yeah. I mean we've got here of course,
(03:40):
and U we freeze in the winter. Yeah, but like
the ground doesn't freeze all the way through. No, no,
and not for prolonged periods either. Um, they look like
ants a lot of times, but they're not even that
closely related to ants. Well, no, they're more closely related
to coca roaches. I think that's where they came from. Uh.
And they've been around for about fifty million years rs.
(04:01):
And there are nearly three thousand species of termites. So
that's just a little background. We should also see termites
are extraordinarily social insects. That's how they survive. Like one
termite is, like we said, an extremely vulnerable organism, but
if you put hundreds of thousands or millions upon millions
(04:21):
of these things together in a single colony, they get
the job done. Yeah, they are social, and there's they're
very structured. Um, some similarities to bees, and that there
is a definite social ladder uh in there there. It's
called a cast actually for termites. And they all have
little jobs that they do, and they all have their
distinct physical features one from another, which is kind of
(04:43):
neat um. So I guess we can start with the
reproducers or reproductives, the egg layers. Right in in any colony,
you have one king and one queen, and they're um
easily distinguishable from the rest because they're the only ones
who are really dark in color. The reason they're the
only ones that are dark in colors because they're the
(05:05):
only ones that are fully mature in the entire colony,
the only ones. It's crazy. That's one of the facts
of the show for me. Bam. Yeah, but the king
and queen aren't the only ones who can lay eggs
soldiers and workers, which will talk about in a second.
They're both sterile, They got nothing going on with the
sexy stuff, nothing, But the king and queen have kind
of backup support with laying eggs, their secondary and tertiary reproducers. Tertiary,
(05:31):
by the way, is like one of the great overlooked
wonderful words. I love that word me too. Yeah, here's
to me another fact of the podcast. The King and
the queen have eyes and the rest of them are blind. Okay,
not all of them are blind though, because I've read
somewhere else that that wasn't quite right. Yeah I did too,
(05:51):
man that basically, if you um develop wings, what is
it an ally um you when you develop those wings,
you all so developed eyes, You're like, holy cow, I
can see now because I got these wings. I guess
if you're gonna fly, you're gonna see, right, So I
guess at the at the point where there's just a
king and queen, there's no allies. The king and queen
(06:13):
maybe the only ones with eyes. And it's also possible
that Tracy was talking about specific species, like there's three
thousand species possible some species only the king and queen
have eyes and came in time. The rest the blind ones.
That is, navigate with smell scent and with moisture trails
(06:33):
and moisture and saliva is big in the termite world.
As we will find throughout the podcast, there's a lot
of regurgitating and spitting out to accomplish their needs. Yeah,
there's a lot of it is kind of magical. Yea.
Not only do they use it to keep their eggs moist,
they salivate on their eggs. They also use it for
things like building, um, shoring up the interior of their
(06:57):
little you know, caves and tunnels. Yeah, filling their entire mounds.
They used their spit for that too. It's magic stuff.
So that's the reproductives. Oh and you also, um you
mentioned um that they navigate the ones that can't see
navigate through scent using pheromones and um, the king and
queen produce a certain type of pheromone. Uh that kind
(07:20):
of controls how the colonies population is at any given time. Yeah,
it's really amazing. Like if they need and beats were
sort of like this too. If they need more soldiers
than they uh deposit the pheromone that makes more soldiers.
They need more workers than they're gonna use the pheromone,
pheromone that makes more workers. Right. The awesome difference though,
(07:41):
was with bees, they went through and either laid an
egg that had been fertilized with sperm to make a male,
or else they laid an egg that wasn't fertilized to
make a female, And that's how they made different kinds
of bees with termites. A termite I actually regress in development,
go back to the starting point to become a nymph
(08:03):
again or a larva, I think, and then start over
and then moll and go from maybe being a worker
to a soldier or something. It's pretty cool. It's depending.
It's all carried out by pheromones. So let's talk about soldiers. Yeah,
they are obviously named so because they are the defenders
of the nest and um, their invaders. And when I
(08:25):
say defenders, they're not gonna be like fight off a
bat or an art park. They're gonna lose that. But
they can defend against other termites and ants and things
like that. And um, what's his name, Aaron Mullins. Mullins
was right to say that termites are fascinating because there's
some stuff that wasn't in this article about soldiers. So
(08:46):
we said that termites are extremely social. There's so social
that they actually display suicidal behavior that benefits the colony.
So some workers and some species developed this blue sack
filled with this blue toxic fluid. And as they age,
they kind of lose their purpose socially speaking. They can't
(09:09):
harvest as much stuff like everybody kind of you know.
The big difference is that when we age, we don't
come across a an attacker and kill ourselves by um
blowing the sack up and spraying the attacker with toxic
So when they don't have their purpose anymore, they could
like fall on the sword for the sick of the colony.
(09:29):
And there's another kind that's the soldier that's really good
at pooping, and they shoot their poop onto enemies, really,
which is a pretty that's pretty amazing. You're gonna be
hard pressed to find too many other bugs that can
accurately aim and shoot their poop and board off other enemies.
Those are termines, all right, that's pretty fantastic. Um. With
(09:51):
the fact of the podcast, it ranks um. So aside
from pooping on other ones, they have the largest mandibles,
which are the little pincers to battle the ants and
other termites. And their heads might be a little darker
than their bodies, but they're not gonna be dark like
the King and queen. Yeah, just the heads. Yeah, And
(10:11):
we talked about the spittle and the regurgitation. It can
be uh toxic and sticky like a like a trap
for another termite. Or just flat out kill them with
the toxicity. It's like you're coming into my joint. I'm
gonna either poop on you or vomit on you this
toxic acid, or explode my blue stack on you. You
(10:33):
know that's right. So then you have the workers. Yeah,
and sadly, the workers are exactly what you think. They are. Blind,
they're They're probably the ones you see most often if
you get like a rotten log or something, the little milky,
creamy looking dudes that just work and that's all they do.
(10:55):
They eat wood and they poop it back out. Um.
They do have mandibles, but they're not as big as
the soldiers. Um. And they dig tunnels, they gather food.
They can't they babysit the king and queen, and soldiers
can't even feed themselves. The workers have to feed the
other termites above them. And what's cool is termites can't
(11:17):
even eat their own food. They need help from microorganisms
for that. So cellulose, which is the glucose polymer, very
tight glucoset polymer that provides structure to all plants. You
like that, thank you, Yeah, that's you can thank cellular.
(11:38):
It would be a big lump if it wasn't for cellulos.
Grass is another one. It's got cellulose um and the
termites can't eat They can eat the cellulus, but they
can't break it down, just like we can't. We can
eat um sucros because we our bodies produced sucras, which
breaks sucrose down into g ucats, which we use for energy. Sure,
(12:02):
same thing with the termites. Their bodies don't produce cellulates,
which breaks down cellulose like we don't either. Like you
can sit there and eat wood all day long and
it's just gonna come out the other end exactly that
that same way I've done it give you splinters on
the way, right, Yeah, it's not nice. And it's the
same thing with the termites. But the big difference between
us and the termites. The termites have this hind gut
(12:25):
that contains microorganisms that break down the cellulose into glucose
can use it's right, And that's uh the only thing
in here I thought was a decent band name, Hindgut. Yeah,
that's pretty good. It's not bad. Uh. So the organisms
are bacteria and protozoans, and they can't live without one another,
(12:45):
like the protozoans and bacteria can't live without the termite either. Yeah,
it's another cooe. And it's not just these micro by
micro bacteria that um that they have a symbiotic relationship with.
Some termites have symbiotic relationship with the fun guess that
will well, we'll see. Yeah. I mean like they're pretty,
they're they're harmonious folks. That's a good way to say.
(13:07):
I like that about them. Uh. Mostly they're categorized by
where they live. There can be subterranean. If they nest underground, um,
they are primitive. If they are kind of like the
ones you find in the rotten log, those are primitive. Yeah.
The um three quarters of all termite species are higher Yeah, termites,
(13:28):
And it's it's not just their physical evolution, but also
their behavioral evolution. The higher ones are the mound builders,
whereas primitive termites are the ones that make a nest
where they're eating, like in them hollowed out log. The
big problem with that, and this is why they're not
as highly evolved, is that when the log runs out,
the colonies like, oh we're dead. Yeah. I was surprised
that they didn't like move on to another loger. That's
(13:50):
why they're primitive in this sense, primitive equals dumb, that's true.
One thing we didn't mention about the King and Queen
that I thought was kind of neat too, is that, uh,
they are monogamous, and um, the queen can store sperm
in her body enough to keep reproducing without sex, but
she still throws the old man a bone even though
(14:11):
she doesn't need to. She's like, I have enough sperm,
but come on, you know, let's let's go do it right, right,
you know, that's probably what she said. And the King
is just, you know, imagine very appreciative at that. You know,
I think that's cute about them. It's going to be
the king. They're they're very social. Um, so let's see
when we're talking about reproduction, right, yeah, I guess we
(14:32):
might as well go at it. It was a pretty
that's a pretty good segway, chuck, thank you. So, um,
you've got an egg. Let's just look at one individual termite.
The termite is born an egg, and out of the
egg emerges a larva, and from the larval stage a
(14:54):
couple of malts go on, and you enter the nymph stage.
And I believe it's the nymph stage that's the real
Like this is where it's like the stem cells stage,
it can like any termite, there's no determination whatsoever. Any
termite can become any member of the cast. Yeah, like
once you're born, that can be a worker or a soldier, right,
(15:17):
or or even a reproductive so um. In the nymph stage,
they go through a few more malts. Say, if they're
going to become a worker, they'll maybe once if they
mold another time. After that they can become a soldier.
I'm not quite sure exactly what process it takes place
for them to become a reproductive because obviously some sort
of sexual um emergence has to take place. Maybe and um,
(15:44):
those are the three casts, and then from the reproductives,
depending on you know, what takes place, they can become
secondary or tertiary or the king and the queen. Yeah,
and like you said earlier, which is I think one
of the facts of the show for sure is that
they can go backward. And they don't like reverse aging
or anything, but it is a reverse molt, where a
(16:06):
regressive malt where they can go from soldier back to worker,
right they go they would go soldier back to nymph,
I think, and then to work. Yeah, you have to
go two steps back to go one step to home
base pretty much. Okay, But so there's like we said,
every colony has one king and one queen um, but
(16:27):
sometimes it's not enough, like the colony may get too big.
And so when that happens, some of the reproductives, the
secondary of tertiary reproductives, will start to grow wings and
possibly eyes as well, and that's probably pretty freaky. I'm
sure it's their life that certain way. And all of
a sudden they're like, whoa, yeah, these things coming out
of my bes like The fly right, you know what's
(16:50):
happening to you? The movie The Fly right? Okay, um,
yeah I knew what's you're saying, just intuitively I did. Yeah,
we did, one, implies to didn't we? Yes, we did. Okay,
that one's pretty interesting insect week, right, So as the
as your friend is starting to grow wings and eyes
and you're not right, You're like, well, I guess I'll
stay here. We can't see it though, at least right
(17:11):
you know you can hear it though? Are you growing wings?
Growing wings? Can hear it? Sounds like wings? No, don't
worry about it. But the other difference with your friend,
is that he or she is suddenly attracted to light,
which is unusual with termites. Light equals dried out, so
they're they're normally like away from the light, they're not
big on the light. Now they are attracted the light,
(17:34):
which means that they all start to kind of hang
out around the entrance of the colony, like what's out there.
And then maybe one warm day, humid day, possibly after
a rain a day that they're not going to dry out,
maybe after sundown, they all stumble out of the colony,
do some terrible flying and try to go find other mates. Yeah,
(17:57):
and that's called a swarm. And that is called a
nuptial flight. And uh, for obvious reasons that we will
see here in a second. And um, that's their only flight.
And it's not like they just fly around like that's it.
The only reason they have those wings is to kind
of get from the nest to another termite. Right, And
apparently the vast majority of them are going to eaten
(18:19):
bat food or frog food or whatever. Lots of things
eat termites. Some do survive. Yeah, And the other interesting
thing is one colony will swarm at the same time
another colony way far away, um will swarm and scientists
think that this is a way that they keep the
gene pool deep. Yeah, that makes total sense. So like
(18:43):
you just mate with someone from another colony, and uh,
you know it's like a tea party, right, you know,
it's like a social like a box feed dating. Yeah,
ice cream social social. So speed dating, you find a
little mate. A male go out, he sees a female
a late that he likes. Yeah, I don't think we
(19:03):
said a late is Latin for wing and um, they land,
they break their wings off. So now they're called delights
and they say, hey, you're kind of cute. You want
to go, like see if we can make a go
of this, And she says sure, let's go found a
colony exactly. So they look for a shelter. They dig
into a hole, um, and then they seal it with
(19:26):
like to set the mood. They don't want like light
coming in there. They see it with poop and saliva. Yeah,
they're poop is also they're pooping. Their saliva are really handy,
super handy. He's just like, let me take care of this,
like it's windy, let me go poop and seal up
our door right with mix it with my spit. Yeah,
maybe they's building some wood and soil and uh. Then
they have a little love nest and they mate and
(19:49):
the new queen lays her eggs. What's cute is like
this this uh, and now they're the new king and
the new queen. This colony that they just founded, the
first generation. They're going down kind of but not really.
It's kind of like the opposite of Jamestown. There's a
lot of birth. Yes, Um, so the the the the
(20:09):
king and the queen will take care of this first
generation until they have enough workers to take over the duties.
Then they get lazy and then they just yeah, they
go back and the queen. The queen doesn't exactly get lazy.
She's laying thousands of eggs every day. Yeah, the most
prolific um. That's like the high end for sure. But
it can happen well. And it takes about two to
(20:30):
four years for a colony to become fully mature. Um.
And depending on whether it's a primitive or a higher
termite species, there can be tens of thousands or millions
of individuals in this mature colony. And then eventually, uh,
it becomes clear that they need to swarm again and
the whole process just takes over again. Yeah, and uh,
(20:52):
the King and Queen will find out later they live
um in the deepest, safest part of their nests, whatever
it may be. Um. And here, I think to me
is finally the de fact of the podcast what queens
can live to be twenty years old? If you thought
that was the fact of the podcast, twenty five years
old for an insect I saw elsewhere six to seventy
(21:14):
really wow? Yeah, man, that is crazy. So that's for
the queen only. Um, but even the workers can live
two to five years, which is pretty impressive. Yeah, in
the insects world, Yeah, for sure. And that's of course
barring accident and you know, well bats and frogs, and
it'll be the same thing with us once we overcome aging.
You'll still be able to die from an accident as Yeah.
(21:35):
And I keep saying people eat them. I didn't look
into it that much, but it's they're definitely on the
menu in a lot of countries. Um. I think is
that the United States and Europe and Canada are the
only countries that don't eat insects in the world. And
if you're need to survive, I know if you've watched Survivor,
man uh, a termite nest is like a really great
(21:57):
thing to happen upon. I'd be like trapped in the woods,
a lot of protein. Yeah, and if you're an art
Parker an ant eater, same deal exactly. So you've got
your colony and they need a place to live. They
don't just wander around. They're not Bedouins, right. They've built
a nest, but they haven't really built there home yet,
(22:19):
their shelter. They've got the house, but they haven't made
it a home kind of, but they haven't expanded it
into a city. They've established a house, it's down the
middle of nowhere. Now they need to build the infrastructure
and a society basically exactly. And once they raised that
first generation of workers, then it starts to take over
and the colony grows exponentially from there. Yeah. Um, their
(22:41):
nests are going to be called They all build nests
no matter what species. They're called termitaries or termitaria. And
even though they all build nests, they can be quite
different depending on what the species is and where you
find them. Like we said, the primitives are going to
be living in the wood that they're consuming until what's gone,
and then they die and they are categorized according to
(23:04):
the wood that they like to eat, which is kind
of cool. Yeah, like damp, dry, or rotten. Yeah, they
probably love that stuff, the rotten stuff. Uh. And then
you talked earlier about the fun guy that they share
their home with in bacteria, which is pretty cool. That's
very much symbiosis as well. Well, actually it's not. It's
(23:25):
one guy can't live without the termites. There is a Yeah,
there's a there's a specific type of termite, macro terminite
neatne macro term You sounding like an islander. Yeah, I
got it, though, I got it. So um. They actually
(23:45):
grow mushrooms like they garden. That was one of the
facts of the podcast too, isn't that neat? Yeah, they
grow these specific types of mushrooms that eventually grow out
of the termite mound. The termites grow these, and the
reason the termites grow them is because this fungus u
helps to break down the cellulosic material that the mound
(24:06):
is built against. So they're they're growing these mushrooms to
help them break this stuff down so they can in
turn eat it more efficiently. Yeah, they're actually gardening. It's
really amazing. Yeah, what's his name, Aaron Mullins. He was right,
they are fascinating. So we'll get to the mounds in
a second, but we'll cover subterranean now. They are the
(24:27):
ones underground obviously, and it's uh, it's sort of like
when you've looked at like the little ant farms that
you buy all the little series of tubes and caves
and tunnels. Um, that's what they're building down there. Some
they have galleries for storage and for classroom education and
raising the young, and then they have they obviously lived
(24:48):
down there as well, and then they connect it all together.
Sometimes they connect it to their food source. Like they'll
build a next near a tree route that connects right
to it and they can just tap right into it.
And then I guess does that kill the tree eventually? Well,
it just disintegrates the tree. It's not there any longer. Yeah,
but it's already dead tree. They eat rotting wood or
(25:09):
dead wood. I don't think they eat live wood. Okay,
so this is just like an old root, I guess. Yeah. Um.
And the the they they'll build their um their nests
such that if it's cold out, yeah, they'll it'll be
deep enough that they can all migrate down to a
warmer spot in the earth. There's like different areas within
(25:30):
the colony that they'll take root, right, and if it's
if it's hot out or something, they'll, um, they'll maybe
go to like part of the colony that's under the
shade of a tree or something like that. I mean
they're pretty complex. Yeah, And if they are building their
nest underground and they come upon a big slab of
rock or something, they build little what's called shelter tubes
(25:52):
about the size of a pencil in diameter, and they
they're basically just a little alternate highway. It's like detours.
Well yeah, it's like, um, it's an extension of the
nest that protects the termites from exposure to sunlight or
the air or anything like that. Yeah, But a lot
of times just to get around something too right, but
(26:12):
rather than having to like crawl up over the rock
and be exposed, they build this this basically like a tunnel.
Then it's like, um, it's like the opposite of a tunnel.
It's it's exposed, it's above ground. So like let's say
you have a subterranean colony chuck, And here's the ground,
(26:33):
and an inch above the ground is your house. But
between the ground and your house is cement, the slab
that your house is built on. They may build a
um what's it called a shelter tube from the ground,
from their nest to your house, and it's just like
an extension of their their colony, of their subterranean nest.
(26:55):
So those are the subs. They're also mounds. I encourage
you to google giant might mound and see some of
these things that are like tall. Some of them are
uncannily like houses. They look like human houses. Yeah, really neat, like, uh,
you'll find these in Africa. You're not gonna find these
in Georgia or anything like that, not this tall. But um,
(27:16):
they are domed, towered structures, and they are made up
of soil and excrement and poop and saliva and all
the moisture that glue like and moisture they can secrete,
I guess. And uh. Some of them are little nests
like on the side of stumps or trees, but some
of them are just free standing out in the middle
of nowhere. Yeah, and like freestanding and structurally sound like, Yeah,
(27:40):
they'll survive longer than the termites. Weil. Yeah, they can
survive brush fires. Seen pictures of brush fires that just
went past the termite mound. Um floods flood l kill
the termite colony, but the mound itself will remain intact.
And they also have a built in heating and cooling
system eventally system where they build chimneys into the mounds
(28:03):
and there's ventilation chefts coming in the other way and
it forces heat out and cool air in. And there's
actually a UM mixed use development in uh Harrara, Zimbabwe
called East Skate Center and it has no central h
v A C. It uses termite inspired chimney ducks for
heating and cooling of this place. It's pretty cool. So
(28:25):
they just got their idea from like how they do
their work. Yeah, it's like biomimicry. Oh yeah, we talked
about that before. Yeah, I don't think we ever did
an episode on it. Now added to the list, my friend. Um.
So another way that termites. You know, they're gonna get
eaten a lot, but that is another way that they
benefit um the ecosystem. If you're part of the food
(28:47):
chain and other animals are gonna eat you and poop
you out. Then you're doing your job right sadly, But
termites also eat other animals pop. Yeah, they eat herban
wars poop because there's frequently cellulosic material left over, and
the termites eat that. If they're cellulose, they're gonna eat it.
They don't care if it's poop. Yeah, And they play
(29:08):
a really vital role to the um to their ecosystems.
In some places, termites are the only things breaking down
cellulosic material like a fallen tree, um or animal poop
that would build up otherwise if the termites didn't eat it. Um.
So they they have a really bad they get a
bad rap among humans. But apparently the species are beneficial. Yeah,
(29:34):
that's true. And I guess this is the point where
we should get into the sad part, which is if
you want to prevent termites from coming to where you
live or get rid of them if they are there.
But um, right after this message break. If you have
a woodhouse, the termite doesn't know that it's not just
(29:56):
a fallen log, it's dead wood as far as they're
in turn, and it it's on the menu, especially if
that would is making direct contact with the ground. Yeah,
it's always a good thing not to have a good
starting point for a termite though. Um So around the
world where termites are really really bad, you might even
see a house with one stilts with like metal posts
(30:18):
so the termites can't get up in there. Um it's
not nearly like that around here, but it sounds like
Africa and Australia have like some serious serious problems with termites.
In Australia, yeah, and I mean those are the places
where you will see like a stilt with metal around
it because the termites, Which makes sense because if there's
(30:40):
enough termites, there's not a lot you can do, so
you just take preventative measures and live with it. Yeah,
like before you build your house. Um, these days they
will treat the ground before they even break ground. But
that stuff is pretty toxic and it only lasts about
five years. Um, if you're not into that, you can
say no, thank you for the toxic treatment. I would
(31:02):
just like to do this every few years. It's still
probably pretty toxic though. Like the way they like, I
have this stuff. Um, I have these little uh they're
not traps, they're built into the ground all around my
house and the termite guy. The only reason to know
he's been there is because he leaves a little note
on my door instead of checked your traps. But they're
(31:24):
not traps. It's probably just leaching nasty stuff into my soils.
What it's doing probably yeah, which is no good, but
it works. Yeah, you don't have termites, that's true. Uh.
And like we said, you don't want your wood coming
into direct contact with the soil. That's gonna be a
basically an open invite for termites to come in there. Uh,
you don't want, but I mean, termite prevention can be
(31:45):
as simple as that. Yeah. If you put like a
moisture barrier in your basement, yeah, just keep it dry.
It's gonna keep your basement dry and that will kill
termites just in and of itself. And then if you
don't have any dirt up against any wood part of
your house. Every once in a while you just walk
around your house and make sure there's no shelter tubes
crawling up to your the wood on your house, you
(32:07):
should be fine. Yeah, And before you buy your house,
you're gonna get a termite inspection. That's like one of
the big things that you should do if you live
in an area proneo termites, that is. But let's say
let's say you do suspect that there's been a termite infestation.
What are some of the signs? Uh, Well, seeing termites
in your house, that's the one that means you're screwed
(32:28):
because they're already through the wood. Especially if you see
a swarm. Oh, you're super screwed because that means there's
so many already in your house that they have to
go form another colony elsewhere in your house. Yeah, that's
when it's time to call a termite professional. That's right.
Um they might look like ants, So if you think
you have an ant problem, you want to like look
(32:50):
extra close in um flying ants. Yeah, at their waste.
Um Ants have a narrower waste than termites do. Um
Ants front wings are a lot long or than the
back wings, whereas termites wings are the same length. So
that's another good way to um tell. And they fold
over one another to make like a straight line. That's
a big giveaway. Uh. And then the antenna and an
(33:13):
ant's antenna's bent and the termites is straight and looks
like a little round pearls. Yeah, so uh yeah, look closely, Yeah,
catch one, hold it gently, look closely and you really
Oh yeah, you could do that. Um, you might. There
might also be other signs, less obvious signs, UM, Like
(33:35):
you might find little tiny wings, like flying ant wings
around your windows in your lights. That's a sign that
termites have been there and have already sworn because they
went from allites to d allites. Um, do you have decayed?
Would if you tap your wood with a hammer, does
the hammer go right through it? If so, that's a
pretty good sign you have termine. Don't like that infomercial? Yeah, uh,
(34:00):
pretty much do in every episode. No, you don't. But
it can also get confused with like water damage and things. Um.
The way you can tell the difference is termite damage
follows the grain of the wood and it's also lined
um with wood and soil, and that's obviously not the
case with water damage. Um. And then, like you said,
(34:20):
just look for the shelter tubes. That's a pretty giveaway.
To pick up a cinder block and do you see
tubes and termites. Yeah. What's great though, is if you
see this, you don't need to panic. Like it takes many, many,
many years for termites to really do significant damage to
your house. Yeah, but it's on the flip side though.
They it's often invisible until it's too late, you know,
(34:45):
like you gotta get if you if you see a
couple of swarms in your house, then yeah, you need
to handle that immediately. You should handle it immediately no
matter what. But if you spotted a shelter tube for
the first time, and you just also looked last week,
you're not necessarily in any danger in The point is is,
since it takes a while, you want to take a
while in finding the right exterminator because they're gonna you're
(35:09):
gonna make friends with this person because they have some
serious work to do. Yeah, and you need an exterminator.
This isn't the kind of problem you can get rid
of on your own. It's not for civilians to tackle.
And we're not shills for exterminators either, We're really saying this.
So you don't want to tackle it on your own. Uh,
you want to hire your exterminator. The first thing they're
gonna do is obviously verify that is infect termites and
(35:33):
not water damage or something. They're gonna hit the wood
in your house with the hammer. Yeah, pretty much. They
have all kinds of things that like heat sensors and
little tiny infrared cameras they'll stick into your walls, and
um stethoscopes, like I can hear them, do they They
have sound sensors. It's just like a high texts stethoscope.
(35:53):
One of the things they can do is bates use baits,
which is basically unfortunately wood soaked and pesticide. It's poisoned
food and they say, hey, come in here and eat this,
and they eat it and then they take it back
to their colony and kill everybody. It's exactly like snow white. Yeah,
it's awful though, Like I've grown, I had grown to
love termites by the end of this, and then I
(36:15):
started reading about how they kill him. I'm like, that's awful.
Can't you just relocate them? I feel it very much
the same way. Yeah, you can't know, No, you can't.
You can't relocate him. You have to kill them, or
you could move just get leave them the house kind
of why not. Repellents is another thing they can use,
my friend, uh, and that's just like any kind of
(36:37):
insect repellent that keeps them from like if you see
a swarm near your house, you're gonna use a repellent.
That means they're not at the house yet and you
can keep them away. Is that what you're guys doing
with a little trap thing or whatever. Uh, he's probably
using your repellent. Yeah, it's some sort of Yeah, I
don't think it's killing like an ultrasonic way that just
shatters their head, you know what it is. It's so weird,
(36:58):
these little round you just when you walk by, it
looks like a little round disk, green disk. And then
I've seen him pull it up though, and it goes like,
you know, six inches into the ground. I think that's
probably repellent. I think it's got to be. And the
cool thing about repellents too, is, um, the ones that
are already inside are trapped inside, and they're cut off
from the rest of the Uh, they're safe colony, which
(37:20):
means that they probably die of dehydration pretty soon. So
that's cool and very sad. All right. Well, I'm just
saying like, yeah, they called me. The final thing that
they can do is just kill them with a termatic side,
and that means pumping sometimes hundreds of gallons of poison
into their nests and killing them into your house. Yeah,
(37:41):
which is the thing that's why you just move and
leave him the house. You tell the bank like, sorry, guys,
I'm not paying on this anymore. Go hit the termites
up for your monthly payment. If you're brave, you got
anything else? No, yeah, it did kind of Who are
hanging on by our fingernails there? I wish we had
(38:01):
one more, like, great, fact, let's just make one up
and then at the end they turn into carrot top. Yes,
it's pretty good. Good going back to the show, I've
got one. Oh, we didn't cover the foremotion, so we're
gonna talk about Okay, I didn't even highlight that one. Yeah,
the termite poop is called frass f R A S
(38:23):
S and frass is rich in magnesium, so when they
poop they enrich the soil. They're just pretty much perfect
in every way except for when they're eating your house.
That's a great way to end it. I know your
carrot top one was the best way to end it. So, uh,
let's see if you want to learn more about termites, right, yeah,
(38:43):
you go type that word into the search bar at
how stuff works dot com and says I said search part.
Its time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this bird killer. Uh.
In our show on myth Busting Common Misconceptions, we I
told the story about killing a bird, and Josh told
the story about Youmi microwaving and bird, but you say
(39:04):
not killing right. It eventually died. She didn't kill it
in a microwave. It just died later from microwave internal complications.
Just died of being overtreated. Okay, So we got a
letter from Matt about that. Um Hi, guys, you broke
my heart this morning. I was listening to your myth
busting podcast on the drive in. I don't like this one.
I read this one. I don't like it. Should I
(39:25):
not read it? Yeah, you can't go. It's so you
can excuse yourself if you want to leave. Okay, I'll
sit through it. You started talking about the mama bird
baby bird myth, and it brought tears to my eyes.
You see, when I was in the fourth grade, my
friend John and I were playing in the woods and
the beautiful South Hills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We encountered a
baby bird, and I, being an animal lover, picked it
(39:47):
up because it was so cute. As soon as I did,
I remember that I had just doomed it to a
slow death of lonely starvation because his mother would never
care for it again. For some reason, even though I
was and am an animal person, neither John nor I
thought of raising it ourselves. Instead, we thought we would
spare it a horrible slow death by snatching it with
the cinder block, which we did just so you know, guys,
(40:09):
I haven't killed an animal since and I'm not a
serial killer currently. Until this morning, I actually thought that
we did the right thing. So this dude from the
fourth grade, until last week, I thought that he had
like spared this bird. Yep. Uh. Now I can't stop
thinking about the mama bird watching from high in a
tree as we smashed her baby with the cinder block.
So thanks for that. Also, I have an anti joke.
(40:32):
We got a lot of anti jokes, by the way,
apparently there's some like established anti jokes. Yeah, the the
rabbits in the bathtub. I didn't see that one. Two
rabbits in the bathtub, and one and said, hey, pass
me the soap, and the other one said, what do
I look like a typewriter? So that one didn't do it.
I like this one. Though a man walks into a bar,
he's an alcoholic and it's destroying his family. Oh yeah,
(40:54):
I saw that one. I love it. Uh. In all
seriousness though, guys, thanks with the best podcast around and
that is from Matt. Thanks Matt. Appreciate that, sorry bubble
of my friend. Actually I don't appreciate that one at all.
If you want to send something that traumatizes Chucker me,
you can tweet to us at s y ESK podcast.
(41:15):
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email to
Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and as always, you
can hang out with us at our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com. Hey.
(41:44):
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com slash stuff and sign up now.
Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff
Works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark,
and there's Charles w Chuck Bryant, there's Jerry So it's
stuff you should know, how d Hey, hey, this is
a fan recommendation. Really. Yes. Aaron Mullins from the Max
(00:25):
Funcan Cruise that I went on last year. Uh works
with termites. I believe, like a termite circus. Yeah, he
runs a termite circus. No, but he said, he said, dude,
you got it. You should do termites. He said they're
really fascinating. They are pretty fascinating. And I said, yeah,
we'll get to it, buddy, and uh, here we are.
So Aaron Mullins, this one's for you. Way to go. Mullins. Yeah,
(00:47):
this is a good suggestion. I mean it's termites. I
can't tell you how many people went, I'm not listening
to that one. Well, they just lost out. And all
of you, dear listeners, the ones who are hearing our
voices talk about termites, you are very blessed. Yeah, it was,
you know, the fact of the podcast thing that we
like to do. I had a hard time picking out
like five or six don't give them away. Let's just
(01:11):
take him in striy it. Huh, it's a chuck. Are
you familiar with this one. He's not gonna have a
good intro. I got a good intro. As a matter
of fact, this is a Tracy Wilson joint. She had
a pretty good intro. She points out that termites are
kind of paradoxes, or the concept of termites is a paradox,
(01:32):
and that they are extremely um vulnerable to changes in temperature,
changes in humidity. They can dry out and die. They
die like dehydration pretty easy. Yeah, they're not super hardy yet.
They they but they can be. They can. But yeah,
they can also like fell an entire house given enough time. Um.
(01:54):
They they develop wings, some of them do. But they're
not really good at flying a lot like cicadas. Oh yeah,
you remember, like we saw those things firsthand, just flying
terribly um. And then soldier termites for example, Yeah, very strong,
huge mandibles and pincers. Yeah. Yeah, they can't even feed themselves.
(02:15):
Were like big babies. There's just a lot of things
going on termites. You think you understand them, Oh, but
what about this part? Bam, that's kind of what happens
when you look into them. That's why they're fascinating. That's
why Aaron Mullins. Mullins recommended it. Yeah, I agree. Should
we get into it? You know what said is there's
(02:36):
just gonna be an awkward pause in the podcast because
people couldn't see me looking at you, like, what's the
guy's name? That's right, we can we can tighten that
up with the magic of editing. Jerry, will you tighten
that up? No, says Jerry. Alright, so yes, let's get
into this, Chuck. Let's talk termites, all right? I guess. Uh.
Usually when we do these, um we've done cocka, roaches
(02:56):
and fleas and uh or do we do flease? We
did ticks? Yeah, we've done ticks for done bees. I
don't have we not done fleaze? We need to do that?
Are you sure? Yeah? Remember tis was like the most
boring episode we've ever done. No, but people went crazy
for it. It's because of the T shirt offer. Remember
if you've made it all the way through that, when
you've got a free T shirt instead of anyway, we
(03:18):
usually start with anatomy, and that's a good place for termites.
Obviously they are insects. And you're gonna find them. You
can really find them anywhere where it doesn't you don't
go into a hard freeze in the winter. But they
are most common in tropical environments, were most abundant. I guess,
well they make their range all the way into temperate
climates though too. Yeah. I mean we've got here of course,
(03:40):
and U we freeze in the winter. Yeah, but like
the ground doesn't freeze all the way through. No, no,
and not for prolonged periods either. Um, they look like
ants a lot of times, but they're not even that
closely related to ants. Well, no, they're more closely related
to coca roaches. I think that's where they came from. Uh.
And they've been around for about fifty million years rs.
(04:01):
And there are nearly three thousand species of termites. So
that's just a little background. We should also see termites
are extraordinarily social insects. That's how they survive. Like one
termite is, like we said, an extremely vulnerable organism, but
if you put hundreds of thousands or millions upon millions
(04:21):
of these things together in a single colony, they get
the job done. Yeah, they are social, and there's they're
very structured. Um, some similarities to bees, and that there
is a definite social ladder uh in there there. It's
called a cast actually for termites. And they all have
little jobs that they do, and they all have their
distinct physical features one from another, which is kind of
(04:43):
neat um. So I guess we can start with the
reproducers or reproductives, the egg layers. Right in in any colony,
you have one king and one queen, and they're um
easily distinguishable from the rest because they're the only ones
who are really dark in color. The reason they're the
only ones that are dark in colors because they're the
(05:05):
only ones that are fully mature in the entire colony,
the only ones. It's crazy. That's one of the facts
of the show for me. Bam. Yeah, but the king
and queen aren't the only ones who can lay eggs
soldiers and workers, which will talk about in a second.
They're both sterile, They got nothing going on with the
sexy stuff, nothing, But the king and queen have kind
of backup support with laying eggs, their secondary and tertiary reproducers. Tertiary,
(05:31):
by the way, is like one of the great overlooked
wonderful words. I love that word me too. Yeah, here's
to me another fact of the podcast. The King and
the queen have eyes and the rest of them are blind. Okay,
not all of them are blind though, because I've read
somewhere else that that wasn't quite right. Yeah I did too,
(05:51):
man that basically, if you um develop wings, what is
it an ally um you when you develop those wings,
you all so developed eyes, You're like, holy cow, I
can see now because I got these wings. I guess
if you're gonna fly, you're gonna see, right, So I
guess at the at the point where there's just a
king and queen, there's no allies. The king and queen
(06:13):
maybe the only ones with eyes. And it's also possible
that Tracy was talking about specific species, like there's three
thousand species possible some species only the king and queen
have eyes and came in time. The rest the blind ones.
That is, navigate with smell scent and with moisture trails
(06:33):
and moisture and saliva is big in the termite world.
As we will find throughout the podcast, there's a lot
of regurgitating and spitting out to accomplish their needs. Yeah,
there's a lot of it is kind of magical. Yea.
Not only do they use it to keep their eggs moist,
they salivate on their eggs. They also use it for
things like building, um, shoring up the interior of their
(06:57):
little you know, caves and tunnels. Yeah, filling their entire mounds.
They used their spit for that too. It's magic stuff.
So that's the reproductives. Oh and you also, um you
mentioned um that they navigate the ones that can't see
navigate through scent using pheromones and um, the king and
queen produce a certain type of pheromone. Uh that kind
(07:20):
of controls how the colonies population is at any given time. Yeah,
it's really amazing. Like if they need and beats were
sort of like this too. If they need more soldiers
than they uh deposit the pheromone that makes more soldiers.
They need more workers than they're gonna use the pheromone,
pheromone that makes more workers. Right. The awesome difference though,
(07:41):
was with bees, they went through and either laid an
egg that had been fertilized with sperm to make a male,
or else they laid an egg that wasn't fertilized to
make a female, And that's how they made different kinds
of bees with termites. A termite I actually regress in development,
go back to the starting point to become a nymph
(08:03):
again or a larva, I think, and then start over
and then moll and go from maybe being a worker
to a soldier or something. It's pretty cool. It's depending.
It's all carried out by pheromones. So let's talk about soldiers. Yeah,
they are obviously named so because they are the defenders
of the nest and um, their invaders. And when I
(08:25):
say defenders, they're not gonna be like fight off a
bat or an art park. They're gonna lose that. But
they can defend against other termites and ants and things
like that. And um, what's his name, Aaron Mullins. Mullins
was right to say that termites are fascinating because there's
some stuff that wasn't in this article about soldiers. So
(08:46):
we said that termites are extremely social. There's so social
that they actually display suicidal behavior that benefits the colony.
So some workers and some species developed this blue sack
filled with this blue toxic fluid. And as they age,
they kind of lose their purpose socially speaking. They can't
(09:09):
harvest as much stuff like everybody kind of you know.
The big difference is that when we age, we don't
come across a an attacker and kill ourselves by um
blowing the sack up and spraying the attacker with toxic
So when they don't have their purpose anymore, they could
like fall on the sword for the sick of the colony.
(09:29):
And there's another kind that's the soldier that's really good
at pooping, and they shoot their poop onto enemies, really,
which is a pretty that's pretty amazing. You're gonna be
hard pressed to find too many other bugs that can
accurately aim and shoot their poop and board off other enemies.
Those are termines, all right, that's pretty fantastic. Um. With
(09:51):
the fact of the podcast, it ranks um. So aside
from pooping on other ones, they have the largest mandibles,
which are the little pincers to battle the ants and
other termites. And their heads might be a little darker
than their bodies, but they're not gonna be dark like
the King and queen. Yeah, just the heads. Yeah, And
(10:11):
we talked about the spittle and the regurgitation. It can
be uh toxic and sticky like a like a trap
for another termite. Or just flat out kill them with
the toxicity. It's like you're coming into my joint. I'm
gonna either poop on you or vomit on you this
toxic acid, or explode my blue stack on you. You
(10:33):
know that's right. So then you have the workers. Yeah,
and sadly, the workers are exactly what you think. They are. Blind,
they're They're probably the ones you see most often if
you get like a rotten log or something, the little milky,
creamy looking dudes that just work and that's all they do.
(10:55):
They eat wood and they poop it back out. Um.
They do have mandibles, but they're not as big as
the soldiers. Um. And they dig tunnels, they gather food.
They can't they babysit the king and queen, and soldiers
can't even feed themselves. The workers have to feed the
other termites above them. And what's cool is termites can't
(11:17):
even eat their own food. They need help from microorganisms
for that. So cellulose, which is the glucose polymer, very
tight glucoset polymer that provides structure to all plants. You
like that, thank you, Yeah, that's you can thank cellular.
(11:38):
It would be a big lump if it wasn't for cellulos.
Grass is another one. It's got cellulose um and the
termites can't eat They can eat the cellulus, but they
can't break it down, just like we can't. We can
eat um sucros because we our bodies produced sucras, which
breaks sucrose down into g ucats, which we use for energy. Sure,
(12:02):
same thing with the termites. Their bodies don't produce cellulates,
which breaks down cellulose like we don't either. Like you
can sit there and eat wood all day long and
it's just gonna come out the other end exactly that
that same way I've done it give you splinters on
the way, right, Yeah, it's not nice. And it's the
same thing with the termites. But the big difference between
us and the termites. The termites have this hind gut
(12:25):
that contains microorganisms that break down the cellulose into glucose
can use it's right, And that's uh the only thing
in here I thought was a decent band name, Hindgut. Yeah,
that's pretty good. It's not bad. Uh. So the organisms
are bacteria and protozoans, and they can't live without one another,
(12:45):
like the protozoans and bacteria can't live without the termite either. Yeah,
it's another cooe. And it's not just these micro by
micro bacteria that um that they have a symbiotic relationship with.
Some termites have symbiotic relationship with the fun guess that
will well, we'll see. Yeah. I mean like they're pretty,
they're they're harmonious folks. That's a good way to say.
(13:07):
I like that about them. Uh. Mostly they're categorized by
where they live. There can be subterranean. If they nest underground, um,
they are primitive. If they are kind of like the
ones you find in the rotten log, those are primitive. Yeah.
The um three quarters of all termite species are higher Yeah, termites,
(13:28):
And it's it's not just their physical evolution, but also
their behavioral evolution. The higher ones are the mound builders,
whereas primitive termites are the ones that make a nest
where they're eating, like in them hollowed out log. The
big problem with that, and this is why they're not
as highly evolved, is that when the log runs out,
the colonies like, oh we're dead. Yeah. I was surprised
that they didn't like move on to another loger. That's
(13:50):
why they're primitive in this sense, primitive equals dumb, that's true.
One thing we didn't mention about the King and Queen
that I thought was kind of neat too, is that, uh,
they are monogamous, and um, the queen can store sperm
in her body enough to keep reproducing without sex, but
she still throws the old man a bone even though
(14:11):
she doesn't need to. She's like, I have enough sperm,
but come on, you know, let's let's go do it right, right,
you know, that's probably what she said. And the King
is just, you know, imagine very appreciative at that. You know,
I think that's cute about them. It's going to be
the king. They're they're very social. Um, so let's see
when we're talking about reproduction, right, yeah, I guess we
(14:32):
might as well go at it. It was a pretty
that's a pretty good segway, chuck, thank you. So, um,
you've got an egg. Let's just look at one individual termite.
The termite is born an egg, and out of the
egg emerges a larva, and from the larval stage a
(14:54):
couple of malts go on, and you enter the nymph stage.
And I believe it's the nymph stage that's the real
Like this is where it's like the stem cells stage,
it can like any termite, there's no determination whatsoever. Any
termite can become any member of the cast. Yeah, like
once you're born, that can be a worker or a soldier, right,
(15:17):
or or even a reproductive so um. In the nymph stage,
they go through a few more malts. Say, if they're
going to become a worker, they'll maybe once if they
mold another time. After that they can become a soldier.
I'm not quite sure exactly what process it takes place
for them to become a reproductive because obviously some sort
of sexual um emergence has to take place. Maybe and um,
(15:44):
those are the three casts, and then from the reproductives,
depending on you know, what takes place, they can become
secondary or tertiary or the king and the queen. Yeah,
and like you said earlier, which is I think one
of the facts of the show for sure is that
they can go backward. And they don't like reverse aging
or anything, but it is a reverse molt, where a
(16:06):
regressive malt where they can go from soldier back to worker,
right they go they would go soldier back to nymph,
I think, and then to work. Yeah, you have to
go two steps back to go one step to home
base pretty much. Okay, But so there's like we said,
every colony has one king and one queen um, but
(16:27):
sometimes it's not enough, like the colony may get too big.
And so when that happens, some of the reproductives, the
secondary of tertiary reproductives, will start to grow wings and
possibly eyes as well, and that's probably pretty freaky. I'm
sure it's their life that certain way. And all of
a sudden they're like, whoa, yeah, these things coming out
of my bes like The fly right, you know what's
(16:50):
happening to you? The movie The Fly right? Okay, um,
yeah I knew what's you're saying, just intuitively I did. Yeah,
we did, one, implies to didn't we? Yes, we did. Okay,
that one's pretty interesting insect week, right, So as the
as your friend is starting to grow wings and eyes
and you're not right, You're like, well, I guess I'll
stay here. We can't see it though, at least right
(17:11):
you know you can hear it though? Are you growing wings?
Growing wings? Can hear it? Sounds like wings? No, don't
worry about it. But the other difference with your friend,
is that he or she is suddenly attracted to light,
which is unusual with termites. Light equals dried out, so
they're they're normally like away from the light, they're not
big on the light. Now they are attracted the light,
(17:34):
which means that they all start to kind of hang
out around the entrance of the colony, like what's out there.
And then maybe one warm day, humid day, possibly after
a rain a day that they're not going to dry out,
maybe after sundown, they all stumble out of the colony,
do some terrible flying and try to go find other mates. Yeah,
(17:57):
and that's called a swarm. And that is called a
nuptial flight. And uh, for obvious reasons that we will
see here in a second. And um, that's their only flight.
And it's not like they just fly around like that's it.
The only reason they have those wings is to kind
of get from the nest to another termite. Right, And
apparently the vast majority of them are going to eaten
(18:19):
bat food or frog food or whatever. Lots of things
eat termites. Some do survive. Yeah, And the other interesting
thing is one colony will swarm at the same time
another colony way far away, um will swarm and scientists
think that this is a way that they keep the
gene pool deep. Yeah, that makes total sense. So like
(18:43):
you just mate with someone from another colony, and uh,
you know it's like a tea party, right, you know,
it's like a social like a box feed dating. Yeah,
ice cream social social. So speed dating, you find a
little mate. A male go out, he sees a female
a late that he likes. Yeah, I don't think we
(19:03):
said a late is Latin for wing and um, they land,
they break their wings off. So now they're called delights
and they say, hey, you're kind of cute. You want
to go, like see if we can make a go
of this, And she says sure, let's go found a
colony exactly. So they look for a shelter. They dig
into a hole, um, and then they seal it with
(19:26):
like to set the mood. They don't want like light
coming in there. They see it with poop and saliva. Yeah,
they're poop is also they're pooping. Their saliva are really handy,
super handy. He's just like, let me take care of this,
like it's windy, let me go poop and seal up
our door right with mix it with my spit. Yeah,
maybe they's building some wood and soil and uh. Then
they have a little love nest and they mate and
(19:49):
the new queen lays her eggs. What's cute is like
this this uh, and now they're the new king and
the new queen. This colony that they just founded, the
first generation. They're going down kind of but not really.
It's kind of like the opposite of Jamestown. There's a
lot of birth. Yes, Um, so the the the the
(20:09):
king and the queen will take care of this first
generation until they have enough workers to take over the duties.
Then they get lazy and then they just yeah, they
go back and the queen. The queen doesn't exactly get lazy.
She's laying thousands of eggs every day. Yeah, the most
prolific um. That's like the high end for sure. But
it can happen well. And it takes about two to
(20:30):
four years for a colony to become fully mature. Um.
And depending on whether it's a primitive or a higher
termite species, there can be tens of thousands or millions
of individuals in this mature colony. And then eventually, uh,
it becomes clear that they need to swarm again and
the whole process just takes over again. Yeah, and uh,
(20:52):
the King and Queen will find out later they live
um in the deepest, safest part of their nests, whatever
it may be. Um. And here, I think to me
is finally the de fact of the podcast what queens
can live to be twenty years old? If you thought
that was the fact of the podcast, twenty five years
old for an insect I saw elsewhere six to seventy
(21:14):
really wow? Yeah, man, that is crazy. So that's for
the queen only. Um, but even the workers can live
two to five years, which is pretty impressive. Yeah, in
the insects world, Yeah, for sure. And that's of course
barring accident and you know, well bats and frogs, and
it'll be the same thing with us once we overcome aging.
You'll still be able to die from an accident as Yeah.
(21:35):
And I keep saying people eat them. I didn't look
into it that much, but it's they're definitely on the
menu in a lot of countries. Um. I think is
that the United States and Europe and Canada are the
only countries that don't eat insects in the world. And
if you're need to survive, I know if you've watched Survivor,
man uh, a termite nest is like a really great
(21:57):
thing to happen upon. I'd be like trapped in the woods,
a lot of protein. Yeah, and if you're an art
Parker an ant eater, same deal exactly. So you've got
your colony and they need a place to live. They
don't just wander around. They're not Bedouins, right. They've built
a nest, but they haven't really built there home yet,
(22:19):
their shelter. They've got the house, but they haven't made
it a home kind of, but they haven't expanded it
into a city. They've established a house, it's down the
middle of nowhere. Now they need to build the infrastructure
and a society basically exactly. And once they raised that
first generation of workers, then it starts to take over
and the colony grows exponentially from there. Yeah. Um, their
(22:41):
nests are going to be called They all build nests
no matter what species. They're called termitaries or termitaria. And
even though they all build nests, they can be quite
different depending on what the species is and where you
find them. Like we said, the primitives are going to
be living in the wood that they're consuming until what's gone,
and then they die and they are categorized according to
(23:04):
the wood that they like to eat, which is kind
of cool. Yeah, like damp, dry, or rotten. Yeah, they
probably love that stuff, the rotten stuff. Uh. And then
you talked earlier about the fun guy that they share
their home with in bacteria, which is pretty cool. That's
very much symbiosis as well. Well, actually it's not. It's
(23:25):
one guy can't live without the termites. There is a Yeah,
there's a there's a specific type of termite, macro terminite
neatne macro term You sounding like an islander. Yeah, I
got it, though, I got it. So um. They actually
(23:45):
grow mushrooms like they garden. That was one of the
facts of the podcast too, isn't that neat? Yeah, they
grow these specific types of mushrooms that eventually grow out
of the termite mound. The termites grow these, and the
reason the termites grow them is because this fungus u
helps to break down the cellulosic material that the mound
(24:06):
is built against. So they're they're growing these mushrooms to
help them break this stuff down so they can in
turn eat it more efficiently. Yeah, they're actually gardening. It's
really amazing. Yeah, what's his name, Aaron Mullins. He was right,
they are fascinating. So we'll get to the mounds in
a second, but we'll cover subterranean now. They are the
(24:27):
ones underground obviously, and it's uh, it's sort of like
when you've looked at like the little ant farms that
you buy all the little series of tubes and caves
and tunnels. Um, that's what they're building down there. Some
they have galleries for storage and for classroom education and
raising the young, and then they have they obviously lived
(24:48):
down there as well, and then they connect it all together.
Sometimes they connect it to their food source. Like they'll
build a next near a tree route that connects right
to it and they can just tap right into it.
And then I guess does that kill the tree eventually? Well,
it just disintegrates the tree. It's not there any longer. Yeah,
but it's already dead tree. They eat rotting wood or
(25:09):
dead wood. I don't think they eat live wood. Okay,
so this is just like an old root, I guess. Yeah. Um.
And the the they they'll build their um their nests
such that if it's cold out, yeah, they'll it'll be
deep enough that they can all migrate down to a
warmer spot in the earth. There's like different areas within
(25:30):
the colony that they'll take root, right, and if it's
if it's hot out or something, they'll, um, they'll maybe
go to like part of the colony that's under the
shade of a tree or something like that. I mean
they're pretty complex. Yeah, And if they are building their
nest underground and they come upon a big slab of
rock or something, they build little what's called shelter tubes
(25:52):
about the size of a pencil in diameter, and they
they're basically just a little alternate highway. It's like detours.
Well yeah, it's like, um, it's an extension of the
nest that protects the termites from exposure to sunlight or
the air or anything like that. Yeah, But a lot
of times just to get around something too right, but
(26:12):
rather than having to like crawl up over the rock
and be exposed, they build this this basically like a tunnel.
Then it's like, um, it's like the opposite of a tunnel.
It's it's exposed, it's above ground. So like let's say
you have a subterranean colony chuck, And here's the ground,
(26:33):
and an inch above the ground is your house. But
between the ground and your house is cement, the slab
that your house is built on. They may build a
um what's it called a shelter tube from the ground,
from their nest to your house, and it's just like
an extension of their their colony, of their subterranean nest.
(26:55):
So those are the subs. They're also mounds. I encourage
you to google giant might mound and see some of
these things that are like tall. Some of them are
uncannily like houses. They look like human houses. Yeah, really neat, like, uh,
you'll find these in Africa. You're not gonna find these
in Georgia or anything like that, not this tall. But um,
(27:16):
they are domed, towered structures, and they are made up
of soil and excrement and poop and saliva and all
the moisture that glue like and moisture they can secrete,
I guess. And uh. Some of them are little nests
like on the side of stumps or trees, but some
of them are just free standing out in the middle
of nowhere. Yeah, and like freestanding and structurally sound like, Yeah,
(27:40):
they'll survive longer than the termites. Weil. Yeah, they can
survive brush fires. Seen pictures of brush fires that just
went past the termite mound. Um floods flood l kill
the termite colony, but the mound itself will remain intact.
And they also have a built in heating and cooling
system eventally system where they build chimneys into the mounds
(28:03):
and there's ventilation chefts coming in the other way and
it forces heat out and cool air in. And there's
actually a UM mixed use development in uh Harrara, Zimbabwe
called East Skate Center and it has no central h
v A C. It uses termite inspired chimney ducks for
heating and cooling of this place. It's pretty cool. So
(28:25):
they just got their idea from like how they do
their work. Yeah, it's like biomimicry. Oh yeah, we talked
about that before. Yeah, I don't think we ever did
an episode on it. Now added to the list, my friend. Um.
So another way that termites. You know, they're gonna get
eaten a lot, but that is another way that they
benefit um the ecosystem. If you're part of the food
(28:47):
chain and other animals are gonna eat you and poop
you out. Then you're doing your job right sadly, But
termites also eat other animals pop. Yeah, they eat herban
wars poop because there's frequently cellulosic material left over, and
the termites eat that. If they're cellulose, they're gonna eat it.
They don't care if it's poop. Yeah, And they play
(29:08):
a really vital role to the um to their ecosystems.
In some places, termites are the only things breaking down
cellulosic material like a fallen tree, um or animal poop
that would build up otherwise if the termites didn't eat it. Um.
So they they have a really bad they get a
bad rap among humans. But apparently the species are beneficial. Yeah,
(29:34):
that's true. And I guess this is the point where
we should get into the sad part, which is if
you want to prevent termites from coming to where you
live or get rid of them if they are there.
But um, right after this message break. If you have
a woodhouse, the termite doesn't know that it's not just
(29:56):
a fallen log, it's dead wood as far as they're
in turn, and it it's on the menu, especially if
that would is making direct contact with the ground. Yeah,
it's always a good thing not to have a good
starting point for a termite though. Um So around the
world where termites are really really bad, you might even
see a house with one stilts with like metal posts
(30:18):
so the termites can't get up in there. Um it's
not nearly like that around here, but it sounds like
Africa and Australia have like some serious serious problems with termites.
In Australia, yeah, and I mean those are the places
where you will see like a stilt with metal around
it because the termites, Which makes sense because if there's
(30:40):
enough termites, there's not a lot you can do, so
you just take preventative measures and live with it. Yeah,
like before you build your house. Um, these days they
will treat the ground before they even break ground. But
that stuff is pretty toxic and it only lasts about
five years. Um, if you're not into that, you can
say no, thank you for the toxic treatment. I would
(31:02):
just like to do this every few years. It's still
probably pretty toxic though. Like the way they like, I
have this stuff. Um, I have these little uh they're
not traps, they're built into the ground all around my
house and the termite guy. The only reason to know
he's been there is because he leaves a little note
on my door instead of checked your traps. But they're
(31:24):
not traps. It's probably just leaching nasty stuff into my soils.
What it's doing probably yeah, which is no good, but
it works. Yeah, you don't have termites, that's true. Uh.
And like we said, you don't want your wood coming
into direct contact with the soil. That's gonna be a
basically an open invite for termites to come in there. Uh,
you don't want, but I mean, termite prevention can be
(31:45):
as simple as that. Yeah. If you put like a
moisture barrier in your basement, yeah, just keep it dry.
It's gonna keep your basement dry and that will kill
termites just in and of itself. And then if you
don't have any dirt up against any wood part of
your house. Every once in a while you just walk
around your house and make sure there's no shelter tubes
crawling up to your the wood on your house, you
(32:07):
should be fine. Yeah, And before you buy your house,
you're gonna get a termite inspection. That's like one of
the big things that you should do if you live
in an area proneo termites, that is. But let's say
let's say you do suspect that there's been a termite infestation.
What are some of the signs? Uh, Well, seeing termites
in your house, that's the one that means you're screwed
(32:28):
because they're already through the wood. Especially if you see
a swarm. Oh, you're super screwed because that means there's
so many already in your house that they have to
go form another colony elsewhere in your house. Yeah, that's
when it's time to call a termite professional. That's right.
Um they might look like ants, So if you think
you have an ant problem, you want to like look
(32:50):
extra close in um flying ants. Yeah, at their waste.
Um Ants have a narrower waste than termites do. Um
Ants front wings are a lot long or than the
back wings, whereas termites wings are the same length. So
that's another good way to um tell. And they fold
over one another to make like a straight line. That's
a big giveaway. Uh. And then the antenna and an
(33:13):
ant's antenna's bent and the termites is straight and looks
like a little round pearls. Yeah, so uh yeah, look closely, Yeah,
catch one, hold it gently, look closely and you really
Oh yeah, you could do that. Um, you might. There
might also be other signs, less obvious signs, UM, Like
(33:35):
you might find little tiny wings, like flying ant wings
around your windows in your lights. That's a sign that
termites have been there and have already sworn because they
went from allites to d allites. Um, do you have decayed?
Would if you tap your wood with a hammer, does
the hammer go right through it? If so, that's a
pretty good sign you have termine. Don't like that infomercial? Yeah, uh,
(34:00):
pretty much do in every episode. No, you don't. But
it can also get confused with like water damage and things. Um.
The way you can tell the difference is termite damage
follows the grain of the wood and it's also lined
um with wood and soil, and that's obviously not the
case with water damage. Um. And then, like you said,
(34:20):
just look for the shelter tubes. That's a pretty giveaway.
To pick up a cinder block and do you see
tubes and termites. Yeah. What's great though, is if you
see this, you don't need to panic. Like it takes many, many,
many years for termites to really do significant damage to
your house. Yeah, but it's on the flip side though.
They it's often invisible until it's too late, you know,
(34:45):
like you gotta get if you if you see a
couple of swarms in your house, then yeah, you need
to handle that immediately. You should handle it immediately no
matter what. But if you spotted a shelter tube for
the first time, and you just also looked last week,
you're not necessarily in any danger in The point is is,
since it takes a while, you want to take a
while in finding the right exterminator because they're gonna you're
(35:09):
gonna make friends with this person because they have some
serious work to do. Yeah, and you need an exterminator.
This isn't the kind of problem you can get rid
of on your own. It's not for civilians to tackle.
And we're not shills for exterminators either, We're really saying this.
So you don't want to tackle it on your own. Uh,
you want to hire your exterminator. The first thing they're
gonna do is obviously verify that is infect termites and
(35:33):
not water damage or something. They're gonna hit the wood
in your house with the hammer. Yeah, pretty much. They
have all kinds of things that like heat sensors and
little tiny infrared cameras they'll stick into your walls, and
um stethoscopes, like I can hear them, do they They
have sound sensors. It's just like a high texts stethoscope.
(35:53):
One of the things they can do is bates use baits,
which is basically unfortunately wood soaked and pesticide. It's poisoned
food and they say, hey, come in here and eat this,
and they eat it and then they take it back
to their colony and kill everybody. It's exactly like snow white. Yeah,
it's awful though, Like I've grown, I had grown to
love termites by the end of this, and then I
(36:15):
started reading about how they kill him. I'm like, that's awful.
Can't you just relocate them? I feel it very much
the same way. Yeah, you can't know, No, you can't.
You can't relocate him. You have to kill them, or
you could move just get leave them the house kind
of why not. Repellents is another thing they can use,
my friend, uh, and that's just like any kind of
(36:37):
insect repellent that keeps them from like if you see
a swarm near your house, you're gonna use a repellent.
That means they're not at the house yet and you
can keep them away. Is that what you're guys doing
with a little trap thing or whatever. Uh, he's probably
using your repellent. Yeah, it's some sort of Yeah, I
don't think it's killing like an ultrasonic way that just
shatters their head, you know what it is. It's so weird,
(36:58):
these little round you just when you walk by, it
looks like a little round disk, green disk. And then
I've seen him pull it up though, and it goes like,
you know, six inches into the ground. I think that's
probably repellent. I think it's got to be. And the
cool thing about repellents too, is, um, the ones that
are already inside are trapped inside, and they're cut off
from the rest of the Uh, they're safe colony, which
(37:20):
means that they probably die of dehydration pretty soon. So
that's cool and very sad. All right. Well, I'm just
saying like, yeah, they called me. The final thing that
they can do is just kill them with a termatic side,
and that means pumping sometimes hundreds of gallons of poison
into their nests and killing them into your house. Yeah,
(37:41):
which is the thing that's why you just move and
leave him the house. You tell the bank like, sorry, guys,
I'm not paying on this anymore. Go hit the termites
up for your monthly payment. If you're brave, you got
anything else? No, yeah, it did kind of Who are
hanging on by our fingernails there? I wish we had
(38:01):
one more, like, great, fact, let's just make one up
and then at the end they turn into carrot top. Yes,
it's pretty good. Good going back to the show, I've
got one. Oh, we didn't cover the foremotion, so we're
gonna talk about Okay, I didn't even highlight that one. Yeah,
the termite poop is called frass f R A S
(38:23):
S and frass is rich in magnesium, so when they
poop they enrich the soil. They're just pretty much perfect
in every way except for when they're eating your house.
That's a great way to end it. I know your
carrot top one was the best way to end it. So, uh,
let's see if you want to learn more about termites, right, yeah,
(38:43):
you go type that word into the search bar at
how stuff works dot com and says I said search part.
Its time for listener mail. I'm gonna call this bird killer. Uh.
In our show on myth Busting Common Misconceptions, we I
told the story about killing a bird, and Josh told
the story about Youmi microwaving and bird, but you say
(39:04):
not killing right. It eventually died. She didn't kill it
in a microwave. It just died later from microwave internal complications.
Just died of being overtreated. Okay, So we got a
letter from Matt about that. Um Hi, guys, you broke
my heart this morning. I was listening to your myth
busting podcast on the drive in. I don't like this one.
I read this one. I don't like it. Should I
(39:25):
not read it? Yeah, you can't go. It's so you
can excuse yourself if you want to leave. Okay, I'll
sit through it. You started talking about the mama bird
baby bird myth, and it brought tears to my eyes.
You see, when I was in the fourth grade, my
friend John and I were playing in the woods and
the beautiful South Hills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We encountered a
baby bird, and I, being an animal lover, picked it
(39:47):
up because it was so cute. As soon as I did,
I remember that I had just doomed it to a
slow death of lonely starvation because his mother would never
care for it again. For some reason, even though I
was and am an animal person, neither John nor I
thought of raising it ourselves. Instead, we thought we would
spare it a horrible slow death by snatching it with
the cinder block, which we did just so you know, guys,
(40:09):
I haven't killed an animal since and I'm not a
serial killer currently. Until this morning, I actually thought that
we did the right thing. So this dude from the
fourth grade, until last week, I thought that he had
like spared this bird. Yep. Uh. Now I can't stop
thinking about the mama bird watching from high in a
tree as we smashed her baby with the cinder block.
So thanks for that. Also, I have an anti joke.
(40:32):
We got a lot of anti jokes, by the way,
apparently there's some like established anti jokes. Yeah, the the
rabbits in the bathtub. I didn't see that one. Two
rabbits in the bathtub, and one and said, hey, pass
me the soap, and the other one said, what do
I look like a typewriter? So that one didn't do it.
I like this one. Though a man walks into a bar,
he's an alcoholic and it's destroying his family. Oh yeah,
(40:54):
I saw that one. I love it. Uh. In all
seriousness though, guys, thanks with the best podcast around and
that is from Matt. Thanks Matt. Appreciate that, sorry bubble
of my friend. Actually I don't appreciate that one at all.
If you want to send something that traumatizes Chucker me,
you can tweet to us at s y ESK podcast.
(41:15):
You can join us on Facebook dot com slash stuff
you Should Know. You can send us an email to
Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com, and as always, you
can hang out with us at our home on the web,
Stuff you Should Know dot com. For more on this
and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff Works dot com. Hey.
(41:44):
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