Hi guys, today i wish to tell you about a particular termite species: Cryptotermes brevis.
This small termite, just around 4/5 mm in the sterile castes, belong to the family kalotermitidae, of which is the most globally widespread member, mainly thanks to two key factor: its secluded and cryptic lifestile and its notable resistance to water deprivation. C. brevis form small colonies of around 1000 member (but often less, though multiple colonies can live side by side in a single piece of wood, maybe even sharing some tunnels) that exclusively reside inside the wood they inhabit, which can be for example just a small furniture leg or painting frame, never leaving it to forage outside or underground and never building visible strucutes like shelter tubes, though they do bore some small kickout holes from which expel their minute and dry frass, quite easily mistaken for sawdust. This make their presence very difficult to notice, in fact they are often spotted only during the swarming event, many years after the founding and when the colony is already well developed, and with some of the former swarmers likely already settled nearby.
They are also adapted to very dry conditions and are capable of impressive feats of water retention, pressing a frass pellet to extract every minuscule drop before excreting it; this allow them to live in completly dry wood for a very long time. It's hence easy to understand how these adaptable critters managed to exploit human wood commerce and seafaring, hitchhiking a ride inside intercontinental-moving wood and furniture to achieve a truly impressive distribution: probably native to wester parts of Chile and Perรน they are now present from the southern US to Hong Kong, from Australia to South Africa, without forgetting southern Europe, Italy included, a feat unattainable by other more moisture-dependent Cryptotermes. They are invasive and very damaging to human activities, but their status as an allochtonous species is quite peculiar: they are almost always restricted to anthropized environement, infesting man-made structures, and usually don't venture out in the wilderness. In Italy brevis have been reported from various major cities like Rome, Naples and Palermo and also in the region of Liguria, though they always are restricted to human structures. In the US they're common in the Hawaii, the coastal southeastern regions and Florida, where they cause severe damage.
Like all the Kalotermitidae Cryptotermes brevis lacks a true caste of workers, reliying instead on pseudergates, sausage-shaped juvenile forms that act exactly like the workers proper, but keep moulting throughout their lives and present an exceptional developmental plasticity: with a moult they will usually remain pseudergates, but if the situation calls for it they can differentiate into soldiers (passing through a presoldier stage in which they will already sport the soldier morphology, but remaining still white and unsclerotized) or reproductives, both primaries and neotenics. Neotenics differentiate from pseudergates in a single moult, while primaries grows wing buds and becomes nymphs before maturity. The neotenics (which appears in number if the pseudergates are separated from the primary couple) are lightly sclerotized and pigmented (yet darker than the pseudergates themselves), and remain in the parent colony to assure its continuity by mating among them: for obvious reasons female neotenics always outnmber the males, be them ergatoids or nymphoids, but this phenomenon is even more stricking in the formers. The primaries are instead well sclerotized, light brown in color and posses two pair of membraneous wing that allow them to initiate a swarming event to found their own colonies, often very near to their parents. I've read than unlike all other castes, which are very slow moving due to their small limbs, they are particularly fast runners. Even in a mature colony the queen exhibit only slight physogastry.
But the soldiers are the most interesting caste, and a shining example of phragmosis, the technique of blocking an intruder's way with you own body: they are equipped whit a short, truncated and extremely though head that they use like a plug to block the narrow tunnels in the wood that make up large parts of their nest structure, and are just above the soldier's head own width. They antennae are also short to decrease their vulnerability to be grabbed. This defense, unlike many other examples of phragmosis, it's not purely passive, for in the case of particularly insistent intruders these soldiers can still inflict poweful bites to anything in reach thanks to their stout, toothed mandibles. Another particularity is their low number: they make up only the 1-2% of the colny population. This means that a well matured colony (around 1000 individuals) sports an average of just 15 soldiers! However since they always live inside their own wood galleries even such few soldiers are capable of effectively defend their colony, for a single of them planted in a narrow tunnel would give a lot of problems to a large number of would-be predators! It's to be noted that due to their specialization and particularly short limbs all Cryptotermes soldiers can hardly fight effectively outside their nest, which they would never voluntarily leave anyway.
Now i would like to add just a few of notes on their keeping, though i never personally raised them and the conditional is often necessary:
they must be kept inside wood, and a method that seems to work well (i know a guy who already used it with C. brevis, keeping ecerything vertical) is to sandwich a thin slice of wood (a whole branch/small trunk section would look nice) inside two panels of glass or plexi, being sure of rimming it aswell with something the animals can't dig thorugh and to bore some small holes for air exchange: basically a design similar to the "termitat" product i've encountered just today on this forum. The wood slice should be thin, i would say around 4-5 mm or even less, in this way the colony would not be able to conceal itself by nesting only in the middle of the wood. Readily accepted woods are pine (Pinus sp) and fir (Abies sp). The wood slice should have a few pre-digged narrow tubes and chambers to accomodate the termites at first, but the animals will soon begin to feed and dig themselves, remaining visible if the width is small enough. Again, in their queens physogastry level is minimal (she swell only a bit) so there would be no problem of "costriction" of a mature queen in a narrow setup. Since Cryptotermes don't build and their frass is very dry visibility should remain consistently optimal. humidity should be low, adding some small water droplets (from an hole in the stup or a syringe) now and then but avoiding any condition of visible water or condense. A temperature of around 25 C (celsius!) is very good for their development, they can also be kept at room temperature with no worries, but don't hibernate them! Keep the habitat away from direct light and strong, continous vibrations. Regarding starting a colony, you can obviously catch the royals after a swarming (remember that termites found in pairs and mate only once they are in a safe place), or simply capture a number of workers (the more the better) to obtain, with time, neotenic breeders. Their colonies are so small and localized than if you actually find workers, the queen is surely nearby. Due to this i think that an habitat around 30 cm in diameter should be able to abundantly fit a mature colony until too much wood have been consumed. However, we need clear and precise data, so start keeping and experimenting 
Ah, and remember to be patient, this species developes very slowly!
Now a pair of pics by the skilled photographer David Mora del Pozo, shared with permission:
Here we can see various castes of Cryptotermes brevis from a mature colony: the king and queen (light brown, note the minimal physogastry of the queen on the left),
nymphs (these are the immature primary royals, with prominent wing buds), many pseudergates and two soldiers with dark heads. They are no neotenics in this pic.
This shot of a Cryptotermes brevis soldier shows well how the head is adapted to plug holes, and its heavy armor contrast quite starkly with the animal's soft body.
The well developed, toothed mandibles are also obvious: in many other Cryptotermes like C. primus they are notably longer. Of course Cryptotermes isn't the only termite genus that use phragmosis
as they key defensive strategy, other examples are Calcaritermes, Eucryptotermes and part of Glyptotermes.
Alright, here's the small but remarkable Cryptormes brevis, to the next termite then!
Edited by ItalianTermiteMan, August 28 2019 - 9:07 PM.
