Why does this even happen? It’s best to just keep searching rather than give up and be homosexual. Even if it does mean a higher chance of survival, that chance is only increased for one of the termites. The weaker one will have better luck if he keeps searching. (I’m not trying to be rude to gay people, this is just a weird thread)
This is probably the main reason:
One reason why same sex pairing in termites seems to be so frequent even if unnecessary for copulation is that termites are incapable of grooming themselves aside from their antennae and must rely on nest mates. Insects after all need to groom a lot and termites are no exception. Termites also posses a low number of glands compared to ants and mainly rely on their saliva for most things. This is even more important if your home is in a bunch of rotting organic material as termites normally do. They also loose their symbiotic microbes upon molting.
Ants are surprisingly good at grooming themselves, termites aren't. If a queen-king couple has found they can groom each other, a single male can't do that and is very likely going to die from bacterial or fungal infection if it doesn't find a female alate quickly. Two males that are able to groom each other can vastly expand their lifetime and as such the window they have available for finding a queen (and contrary to ant males - which basically live on borrowed time once they left the colony - food should not be an issue for termite males).
It's probably something similar that lead to male couples in certain dolphin species (which actually seem to form emotional bonds that qualifiy as true homosexual behavior) - the females usually live in groups with other females and their juvenile offspring. The males don't, they leave their group once they reach maturity to mate with females from other groups. Swimming through the oceans alone being a terrible survival strategy though, there's all kinds of reasons for them to pair up with another male and actually care for their (often life-long) companion.
Edited by Serafine, December 14 2018 - 5:40 AM.
