04Feb Digs Giant Termite Nest, King and Queen As Large As Index Finger
A resident’s kitchen at Longquanyi, Chengdu collapsed because of the termite cave. The cave had a diameter of 79 centimetres and 30 centimetres deep.
Chang Chuan-feng’s kitchen collapsed last November. When Chang began to clean the kitchen yesterday afternoon, he discovered a termite cave which was 79 centimetres wide in diameter. This discovery explained why the kitchen wasn’t affected by earthquake but suddenly collapse last November.
The termite nest was light gray and it was hollow. According to Chang’s brother Li Yun-long, the nest was filled with eggs and a lot of termite crawling on it. The termites were translucent and same size as normal ants. After further digging, they found the termite nest was larger than basin and a lot of termites fled out. The family stopped digging and called Longquanyi District termite prevention and treatment centre for help.
The prevention and treatment centre’s experts rushed to the scene immediately. They found a pair of adult termites at the damaged nest. The adult termites were as thick as the index finger. The termite queen looked like the pig worm. The experts took away the termite king and queen to turn them into specimens. The experts later told Chang’s family continue to dig the surrounding termite cave and put pesticides everywhere in the cave. The family later discovered the cave was all over the kitchen’s underground like underground honeycomb.
Wang Xiao-tao, the termite experts, said that this termite cave was the biggest since the founding of the Termite Prevention and Treatment Centre in 1997. He suspected the termite nest was formed for nearly 10 years and lived on the underground’s dead wood.
Source: Sohu
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June 24th, 2009 at 7:49 pm
I don’t think that’s a queen and the king,
I think those are two mature queens,the queen expands because she gets an extra set of ovaries to help produce all the eggs she carries
(she is perpetually pregnant) A colony would’nt let the king get that big because he does’nt need to. This must of been a colony with more then one queen.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:53 pm
I agree.
August 17th, 2010 at 11:09 pm
yes exactly. they both are queen because the king is always much smaller than queen.