Science: The Termites Are Winning

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Practical Socialism. The menace of termites is increased by their socialist tendencies-they are the most communal of insects. Some ants, wasps and bees are solitary; there are no solitary termites. They have three major castes: reproductives, workers and soldiers. With a male as well as a female reproductive in each colony, termites differ from all other social insects, which are matriarchic. They are the most fecund of all land animals. Some queens become enormously swollen with eggs, attaining a length of over five inches-20,000 times bigger than soldiers and workers. They produce as many as 7,000 eggs a day for incredible periods -sometimes as long as 40 years.

Chemical Warfare. Termite soldiers are so specialized for war that they cannot even feed themselves, must be crammed by workers. Their fantastic defense mechanism is designed solely for use against their chief enemy, ants. The soldiers' enlarged heads (see cut, p. 38) contain glands which produce a viscous chemical. Some times it is squirted forth in a gooey stream which entangles the attackers, and some times confuses and repels them by its odor.

These outsize military heads are also useful for 1) plugging breaches in nests and runways until the workers can repair them, 2) pounding loudly against the walls to warn other termites of danger-a sound often heard by exterminators.

Can Man Win? U.S. termite trouble may become worse. There is constant danger that new varieties will be imported (the U.S. has already exported several varieties of termites in lumber to Europe, where only two native types occur). But most scientists doubt that the termite and other social insects will conquer man and dominate the earth, despite the fears of Novelist H. G. Wells. Reason: limitations of their breathing apparatus.

In insects, as Naturalist Julian Huxley explains, microscopic air tubes carry oxygen "directly to and from the tissues instead of using dual mechanisms of lungs and blood stream. Laws of gaseous diffusion are such that [this system] is extremely efficient for very small animals, but becomes rapidly less efficient with increase of size, until it ceases to be of use at a bulk below that of a house mouse. [So] no insect has become moderately large by vertebrate standards or moderately intelligent." If the termite had a proper trachea, man might never have appeared on earth.

End of the Hunt

Ever since it was founded in 1869, Manhattan's great American Museum of Natural History has felt self-conscious about a gap in its collection of animal skeletons-the skull of the rare, nearly extinct Java rhinoceros, which has never been shown in any zoo on earth. Since 1920 the museum has sent many expeditions, financed by Trustee Arthur Vernay, to Malaya on fruitless searches for the shy beast.

But the museum has its rhino skull at last. It was found amid a heap of dusty bones in the Museum's attic, where it has lain since 1869.

Trustee Vernay had not yet been notified of the good news last week. Said a curator: "We're afraid to tell him."

Weed Makes Good