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Termites are eusocial insects which are classified at the taxonomic rank of infraorder Isoptera, or as epifamily Termitoidae within the cockroach order Blattodea. Termites were once classified in another sequence from cockroaches, but recent phylogenetic studies indicate that they evolved from near ancestors of cockroaches during the Triassic.
Approximately 3,106 species are currently described, with a couple hundred more left to be described. Although these insects are often called"white ants", they're not ants. .
Like ants and a few bees and wasps from the distinct purchase Hymenoptera, termites divide labour among castes consisting of sterile male and female"employees" and"soldiers". All colonies have fertile males called"kings" and one or more fertile females known as"queens". Termites chiefly feed on dead plant material and cellulose, generally in the kind of wood, leaf litter, dirt, or animal dung.
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Termites are among the most successful groups of insects on Earth, colonising many landmasses except Antarctica. Their colonies range in size from a few hundred individuals to enormous societies with many million individuals. Termite queens have the longest lifespan of any insect in the world, with some queens allegedly living up to 30 to 50 decades.
Colonies are called superorganisms because the termites form a part of a self-regulating entity: the colony itself. .
Termites are a delicacy in the diet of some human cultures and are employed in many traditional medicines. Several hundred species are economically significant as pests which can cause serious damage to buildings, plants, or plantation forests. Some species, such as the West Indian drywood termite (Cryptotermes brevis), are considered as invasive species. .
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The infraorder name Isoptera comes from the Greek words iso (equivalent ) and ptera (winged), which refers to the nearly equal size of their fore and hind wings.2"Termite" derives from the Latin and Late Latin term termes ("woodworm, white ant"), altered from the influence of Latin terere ("to rub, wear, erode") by the earlier word tarmes.
The external appearance of this giant northern termite Mastotermes darwiniensis is indicative of the close relationship between termites and cockroaches.
Termites were formerly placed in the order Isoptera. As early as 1934 suggestions were made they were closely related to wood-eating cockroaches (genus Cryptocercus, the woodroach) dependent on the similarity of their symbiotic gut flagellates.6 In the 1960s additional evidence supporting that theory appeared when F. A. McKittrick noted similar morphological traits between some termites and Cryptocercus nymphs.7 In 2008 DNA analysis from 16S rRNA sequences8 affirmed the position of termites being nested within the evolutionary tree containing the order Blattodea, which included the cockroaches.910 The cockroach genus Cryptocercus stocks look at more info the strongest phylogenetical similarity with termites and is considered to be a sister-group to termites.1112 Termites and Cryptocercus share similar morphological and societal features: for instance, most cockroaches do not exhibit societal attributes, but Cryptocercus takes care of its own young and exhibits other societal behavior such as trophallaxis and allogrooming.13 Termites are regarded as the descendants of the genus Cryptocercus.914 Some researchers have suggested a more conservative step of retaining the termites as the Termitoidae, an epifamily within the cockroach sequence, which averts the classification of termites at family level and under.15 Termites have long been approved to be closely related to cockroaches and mantids, and they're categorized in precisely the exact same superorder (Dictyoptera).1617.
The earliest unambiguous termite fossils date to the early Cretaceous, but given the diversity of Cretaceous termites and early fossil records showing mutualism between microorganisms and these insects, they probably originated earlier in the Jurassic or Triassic.181920 Further evidence of a Jurassic origin would be that the assumption that the extinct Fruitafossor consumed termites, judging from the morphological similarity to modern termite-eating mammals.21 The earliest termite nest detected is thought to be from the Upper Cretaceous in West Texas, in which the earliest known faecal pellets have been also discovered.22 Claims that termites emerged previously have confronted controversy.
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Weesner indicated the Mastotermitidae termites may return to the Late Permian, 251 million years ago,23 and fossil wings that have a close resemblance to the wings of Mastotermes of their Mastotermitidae, the toughest living termite, have been found in the Permian layers in Kansas.24 It is even possible that the first termites emerged during the Carboniferous.25 The folded wings of this fossil wood roach Pycnoblattina, arranged in a convex pattern between segments 1a and 2a, resemble those seen in Mastotermes, the only living insect with exactly the identical pattern.24 Krishna et al., though, consider that each one of the Paleozoic and Triassic insects tentatively categorized as termites are in fact unrelated to termites and needs to be excluded out of the Isoptera.26 The crude giant northern termite (Mastotermes darwiniensis) exhibits numerous cockroach-like attributes that are not shared with other termites, like laying its eggs in rafts and having anal lobes on the wings.27 Cryptocercidae and Isoptera are united in the clade Xylophagidae.28 Termites are sometimes known as"white ants" but the only resemblance to the ants is like this because of their sociality which is because of convergent evolution2930 with termites being the very first social insects to evolve a caste system more than 100 million years ago.31 Termite genomes are generally comparatively large in comparison to that of other insects; the first completely sequenced termite genome, of Zootermopsis nevadensis, which was printed in the journal Nature Communications, consists of approximately 500Mb,32 while two subsequently published genomes, Macrotermes natalensis and Cryptotermes secundus, are considerably larger at around 1.3Gb.3330.