Thursday, September 21, 2006
Day 3 was spent at Litchfield national park, home to lots of enormous termite mounds - I never thought I would become enthused about termites but these guys are AMAZING!
Each mound is home to tens of thousands of termites, but only one queen, who can live up to 80, yes 80 years old!! The worker termites make up around 85% and around 10% are the soldier termites which engage in chemical warfare with any intruders and repair any holes in the mound within minutes of them appearing. The remaining termites purpose is to procreate and fly off to start new mounds.
The mounds grow approx 1 metre every 10 years and are built to keep the temperature at a constant 30c. They also survive flooding during the wet season and are as hard as cement (in world war 2 they were knocked down and used as airstrips).
These are magnetic termite mounds that look like giant gravestones and all face the same direction so that the least possible surface area is ever exposed to the sun - looked just like a graveyard and a bit eerie as the rest of the landscape was burnt out.
These are cathedral mounds - the shape helps to control the temp again as part is always in the shade.
Each mound is home to tens of thousands of termites, but only one queen, who can live up to 80, yes 80 years old!! The worker termites make up around 85% and around 10% are the soldier termites which engage in chemical warfare with any intruders and repair any holes in the mound within minutes of them appearing. The remaining termites purpose is to procreate and fly off to start new mounds.
The mounds grow approx 1 metre every 10 years and are built to keep the temperature at a constant 30c. They also survive flooding during the wet season and are as hard as cement (in world war 2 they were knocked down and used as airstrips).
These are magnetic termite mounds that look like giant gravestones and all face the same direction so that the least possible surface area is ever exposed to the sun - looked just like a graveyard and a bit eerie as the rest of the landscape was burnt out.
These are cathedral mounds - the shape helps to control the temp again as part is always in the shade.# posted by Beth D @ 8:00 PM 
