#isoptera

[bowelfly]

left to right: satin moth, dictyopharid planthopper, rabbit bot fly, firefly, billbug, hover fly, fairy bee, and in retrospect Termite Greg may not have been the best one to take the group holiday photo

[transparentfossil]

Fossil Termite (Isoptera) In Baltic Amber

[dimetrodone]

Termite digimon

[fiishboowl]

My last one got some attention and I accidentally only set it for a short time frame so here is BUG POLL 2!!!!!!

Best popular insect taxonomic order

Coleloptera (Beetles)

Diptera (Flies)

Hymenoptera (Ants, Bees, Wasps)

Odonata (Dragonflies and Damselflies)

Lepidoptera (Butterflies and Moths)

Hemiptera (True bugs ie Cicadas/Aphids)

Orthoptera (Crickets/Grasshoppers)

Phasmida (Stick Insects)

Ephemeroptera (Mayflies/Upwing flies)

Mantodea (Mantids)

Blattodea (Cockroaches)

Isoptera (Termites)

Voting ended onJun 4, 2024

[jupiterswasphouse]

Termites :] they have such long faces,,,

[piraticoctopus]

Y’all wanna know how my train of thoughts work like 24/7? I had a big nerd mind expansion moment while trying to organize my Hollow Knight thoughts where I pulled out my entomology textbook because I was thinking about eusocial insect societies (ants, honey bees, termites)— and when I typed out a description of them in a way that pointed out how messed up it is when you give it morals (in short, I described them as producing a “self-sacrificing, unthinking, emotionless, will-lacking army”), I was like “woah, wait a minute, no mind to think”, and I realized I don't really know all that much about termites or how their societies/genetics differ from hymenopterans (ants, bees, and wasps), but I knew they DO have a king, so I looked into it more and then did a deep dive into reading scientific papers about caste determination and colony structure and then when I went to find a diagram of it—

*fucking x-files theme plays with a dramatic zoom-in*

TLDR; the Pale King’s basically a termite.

Supporting info and other interesting (to me!) facts about termites below the cut:

(Here’s the publication that diagram is from in case anyone wants to read about queen termite reproductive strategies lmao)

Termites are monogamous until one of the pair dies. Queens can produce new queens through parthenogenesis (making babies without a male, so 100% of their genes are from her, but they aren’t necessarily straight clones). So if she needs to she can make a bunch of younger versions of herself.

I googled “are termites monogamous” for confirmation and forgot to specify Google Scholar and there is... so much going on here

Some reproductives are meant to leave the colony to start new ones, and thus have wings (and are called “alates”). Their wings are shimmery and very pretty and like twice the length of their bodies so all those headcanons where people give PK wings are valid.

Irrelevant to my point, but interesting: Unlike hymenopterans, in which males are haploid (only have one copy of each gene), termite males are diploid (have two copies, which is standard in most animals). Honey bees have some weird genetic fuckery because of that which results in the females (all diploid) of a colony sharing an average of 75% of their genes with each other (average full-sibling relatedness is 50%).

Also unlike ants and honey bees, the males don’t fuck off and die after mating. In those groups, the queen can mate once and then produce fertile eggs whenever she feels like it, but in termites the king sticks around and they just... constantly go at it, I guess. (Which, considering that being isolated and bound is enough to keep the WL from making more kids, maybe this one is a point in my favor.)

Workers and soldiers can be either male or female, unlike ants/bees where all workers are female, but are kept sterile via pheromones, so they’re functionally all kept neutral.

Some soldiers produce acids and will straight-up explode themselves during warfare, or use their massive heads to physically block tunnels from intruders, and commit numerous other acts that would violate the Geneva Conventions. Bugs have no morals and by our standards they’re all dirty little sinners running around committing war crimes.

I read something about mass burial pits, but couldn’t find more information on it other than that they exist??

Their architectural skills are incredible. The craftsmanship! You’ve got the classic “cathedral” style towers typically associated with termite mounds (largely constructed from shit, btw— maybe that’s why Ogrim is a fav), but some species apparently make “cartons” (papery nests) up on tree trunks.

Termites love wood. PK’s wife is a tree.

[inspect-my-insect]

10 SIZZLING HOT Sex Tips

Be the boss and use your pincers to drag your mate into a nitrogen-rich log.

[animalids]

Harvester termite (Anacanthotermes ubachi)

Photo by Gil Wizen