They might be eating your home, but termites play a vital role in ecosystems.
Termite image from www.shutterstock.com
Termite damage costs Australian homes at least a billion dollars each year – but they are absolutely vital for ecosystems.
The common grey silverfish, Ctenolepisma longicaudata, in Sydney.
Silverfish have disappeared from our homes as book-bindings - their favourite food - have improved.
Tiny termites build mega mounds.
They're the soil-builders that allow Africa's arid savannas to be lush grasslands. What do they do inside their huge mounds – and how does a collective mind allow them to do it?
Insects are key to holding the food chain together. Without them, much of what we eat today won’t exist.
Without insects the food chain would diminish and we would have very little fruit and vegetables to eat.
True Australians: hard workers, quiet achievers and generally underappreciated labourers.
Insects are largely hidden from view or maligned unfairly, but they make a tremendous contribution to the Australian economy.
A queen bee tended by her workers … but take away her pheromones and they start to act strangely.
Much like people, insect colonies like to know if her majesty is at home. In the ants, bees, wasps and termites (the “big four” of the social insect world), the queen has long been suspected of using special…
A study into the role of gut bacteria in termite stomachs has given surprising, but hopeful, results. Researchers at Purdue…