Rumors:
The annual termite carnival has entered people's field of vision again, whether it was Liu Genghong was busy fighting termites in the live broadcast room a while ago, or Shanghai failed to prevent and control termites in time due to the epidemic and other news , making termites appear on the hot search again. In fact, this is not a special phenomenon this year. In areas where termites are distributed, May and June are the termite breeding season. Many people who don’t like bugs often feel great pressure during this period. Many people think that termites are white ants , and they are all a type of insect.
The truth:
These winged guys are actually the breeding ants of termites. We call the behavior of breeding ants coming out in groups to play patty as "flying apart". To put it bluntly, it is the termites' customary "blind date meeting". This blind date meeting is often held on rainy nights, and they gather on some dim street lamps. After one night, when people wake up, they find that they only leave their wings on the ground and their companions who have fallen into the water. It is because they like to come out and fly apart on rainy days to make their presence felt in front of people, that is why they are called "water ants".
Whether you call it a termite or a water ant, one "ant" is not the other "ant" - Termites are not white ants. Entomologists divide termites and ants into two families. Termites originally stood on their own. Collectively known as Isoptera , was later classified into Xiaoqiang's Blattida , and transformed into a type of social "cockroaches", However, ants are the same as wasps and bees. Just by looking at this classification, you can tell that the fighting capabilities of termites and ants are not on the same level.
In the wild, this is exactly the case. Like most cockroaches, termites use humus (rotten wood, rotten leaves) as their main source of food. On the ants' menu, in addition to various sweets, there are also Various insects, including termites - "The protein of termites is n times that of beef, so suck it~".
Picture insect creative
Although they are both social insects, the two categories are somewhat different in their composition. After mating, the male and female termites "return the home together" - after the termites pair up, they find a suitable place to live together, dig together, give birth to sons and daughters, and then form a big family of termite father and mother. We often call them " king ants" ", " queen ", the queen ants of the big white meat insects we often see are actually the termite queens who "get fat after marriage".
After the male and female breeding ants mate, the male ant dies, leaving the female ant alone to dig the nest by herself, so ants only have a queen, not a king. In comparison, the number of termite members in a nest is generally greater than the number of ants.
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