What Do Termites Eat? An Introduction to the Main Types of Termite Food

What do termites eat? Termites have a very broad diet. Their nutrients come from plants, with plant cellulose and cellulose products as their staple food, along with fungi and lignin, and occasionally starch, sugars, proteins and so on. However, people also commonly see termites boring into and eating synthetic fibers, plastics, wires, cables and even bricks, stones and metal; they corrode and melt these objects with chemicals such as formic acid that they spit from their mouths. In addition, they can also swallow termite corpses within the same colony and the old skins shed by developing young termites, and when external food is scarce, they will also swallow eggs and even young termites. However, cannibalism is not their normal mode of nutrition. Termite food can be summarized in the following aspects:

Living plants

Many species of soil-dwelling termites can feed on the roots and stems of plants, especially seedlings, tender stems and roots.

Dried plants

Cellulose occupies an extremely important place in the entire diet of termites. Many species of termites not only feed on natural wood and dried plants, such as boring into and eating dead tree stumps, dead branches and fallen leaves, and dead wood parasitized by wood-decay fungi. Odontotermes formosanus and Macrotermes barneyi also feed on dried cow dung. In addition, termites can also feed on various processed products containing cellulose, such as paper and cloth.

Although termites feed on large amounts of cellulose, termites alone cannot complete the entire process of digesting cellulose. Except for the family Termitidae, the guts of other termites contain large numbers of single-celled organisms, including four classes of protozoa (Mastigophora, Sarcodina, Sporozoa and Ciliata) as well as bacteria, with more than 300 species having been named. These microorganisms have a symbiotic relationship with termites, and only with the assistance of these microorganisms can cellulose be digested and converted into substances that termites can absorb and use.

Microorganisms

Termites can also obtain supplementary nutrients from microorganisms. Some termites feed on fungi, and these fungi fall into two types: one type is cultivated by termites using special methods, and the other type is not specially cultivated by termites.

Minerals

Termites secrete a highly concentrated formic acid, which reacts chemically with silver to form silver formate, a black powder that is then eaten by the termites.

Others

Termite corpses, the molted skins of young termites, eggs and young termites; termites also often eat fibrous materials such as some books, archives, paper, cloth and silk.