Being
useful in old age by exploding into action is a tack taken by the worker caste
of termites of the Neocarpritermes
taracua persuasion. Termites are social insects and have a soldier caste of
big girls with big mandibles to ward off invaders and keep the colony safe and allow the workers go about their business collecting food, bringing up larvae, and
keeping the place tidy.
In
the end, we all get old and termite workers do too. Šobotnik et al have just published a study of N taracua from their work in French Guiana. They noticed that the
old workers were showing their age not by wrinkles or gravity taking over, but
by little blue pouches showing up on their backs. These aren’t just age spots,
though. They are copper-protein crystals forming in little backpacks.
Blue backpacks have a purpose. These oldies march to the fore to
help the soldiers deter invaders. When they reach the front line, the grab an
invader and becom
The
explosions mix the contents of the backpacks with the contents of the salivary
glands. Now this two-part mix doesn’t just produce a sticky goo, but turns it
into a deadly toxic killer goo.
The
older they get, the more deadly they become. Need to watch out for those oldies,
especially if you plan a hostile takeover of an adjacent termite enterprise.
- http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6093/436
- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19001083
