Termites: Hardworking Insect Families (Insect World)

Description

Watch one of nature's hardest-working insect families in action--termites! Hundreds of thousands of termites can live together in one nest. The termite queen spends her life laying eggs. The eggs hatch into workers that clean the queen, watch over the eggs, search for food, tend the nest's gardens, and guard the nest and each other. But a termite family's most amazing feat is building the huge mound that protects the nest. Thousands of tiny termites take mouthfuls of soil from ground level and climb to the top of the mound. Mouthful by mouthful, the soil piles up until the mound is up to six feet (3 meters) across! In this exciting book, you can learn what makes mound-building termites similar to and different from other insects. Close-up photographs and diagrams reveal extraordinary details about termites' bodies, both inside and out. And you can perform an experiment that shows you how termites use scent trails to find their way to food and home again. Learn more about this exciting member of nature's fascinating Insect World.