Whats a termite lifespan?
There’s no simple answer to this one. It depends. Species, life-type, wear and tear, colony health–all these things affect the potential for a long life. A worker or soldier termite can live up to about three years in my lab, but probably only a year or so in the wild. They can also get killed soon after starting work and so may only last a few months. A reproductive female, the termite queen is something quite different. In some mound-building species queens are reported to last more than 40 years, perhaps several decades more! This would likely make them the longest-living insects. As usual, though, termite reality is stranger than we first thought. Imagine an amoeba, a superbly simple single-celled animal. If one splits (binary fission), producing two individuals, is the original one alive or dead? I think it is still alive. Do we think the same if the animal is multicellular and reproduces less simply? The issue arises with termites. Japanese and American researchers looking at th
