Termite Distress Signal: Head-Banging

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Termite Mound in Africa
A termite mound in Kenya. (Image credit: Termite mound image via Shutterstock)

Head-banging termites send out long-distance distress signals by bashing their noggins into the ground a dozen or so times per second, researchers find.

In the African savanna, termites such as Macrotermes natalensis and related species construct gigantic mounds in which they grow fungus for food like farmers. To defend their homes against predators  such as hungry aardvarks, termites need ways to communicate with remote nestmates over long distances.

"We looked at how a signal is transmitted from the individual into the soil, how much is it attenuated with distance and how fast can it travel physically," researcher Wolfgang Kirchner at Ruhr University Bochum in Germany said in a statement.

The investigators witnessed the soldiers rapidly banging their heads on the ground about 11 times per second, with signals each capable of spreading nearly 15 inches (40 centimeters). Soldiers that received the warning ran to assist their nestmates, while workers retreated. Comparable results were seen with a similar African termite species belonging to the genus Odontotermes.

The soldiers responded to drumming by drumming themselves. This can spread an alarm  much the same way soldiers at the Great Wall of China alerted others by using smoke signals during the day and beacon fires at night, thus spreading the signal along the length of the wall.

Kirchner and his colleague Felix Hager detailed their findings Aug. 7 in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

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Charles Q. Choi
Charles Q. Choi
Live Science Contributor
Charles Q. Choi is a contributing writer for Live Science and Space.com. He covers all things human origins and astronomy as well as physics, animals and general science topics. Charles has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Missouri-Columbia, School of Journalism and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of South Florida. Charles has visited every continent on Earth, drinking rancid yak butter tea in Lhasa, snorkeling with sea lions in the Galapagos and even climbing an iceberg in Antarctica.