Eastern subterranean termite
The eastern subterranean termite is a small, soft, creamy white insect that lives in huge families under the ground. It is the most common termite in North America. It loves to munch wood, even the wood that houses are built from.
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Fun facts
One family can have from 20,000 to as many as 5 million workers.
The workers are blind and have no wings. They do almost all the work: they find food, build tunnels and look after the babies.
The soldiers have a big yellow-brown head and long black jaws to fight off invading ants. They cannot feed themselves, so the workers feed them.
The queen can lay 5,000 to 10,000 eggs in a year.
Its scientific name flavipes means yellow foot, because its feet are yellowish.
Most asked questions about Eastern subterranean termite
?Is the eastern subterranean termite dangerous?
Not to people, it does not sting. But it can eat the wood inside houses and cause damage.
?What do termites eat?
Wood and other plant things like paper, books and cotton.
?How big is the eastern subterranean termite?
A worker is only about 3 millimetres long. The winged ones are about 1 centimetre to the tips of their wings.
For bug experts
- Scientific name
- Reticulitermes flavipes
- Group
- Cockroaches and termites
- Family
- Rhinotermitidae
- Classification
- Insecta > Blattodea > Rhinotermitidae
- Lives on
- North America, Europe, South America
Where the facts come from
- Reticulitermes flavipes (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
- Picture by unknown author. Public domain, Wikimedia Commons. The round sticker of this bug is cut from the same picture.
If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at hello@bugwiki.app and we will fix it.
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