Termites

[ecoli]

I thought I'd share this cool little experiment with you.

Get some termites. enclose them in an area and draw a line with a ball point pen (blue or black) and the termites follow the pen line.

I think there are pheremones in the pen ink that is a sexual stimulant for the termite. It's pretty cool to see the termites following a pen mark.

[YT2095]

neat

 

have you tried it with different inks and colors?

I know many ballpoint pens with black and blue ink contain Iron salts, try green or red.

let us know what happens

also you might keep a list of those that work and those that dont, and do some chromatography on each, see if you can find similarities

[Martin]

... I think there are pheremones in the pen ink that is a sexual stimulant for the termite..

 

that just shows what your interests are focused on

 

worker termites don't mate or lay eggs so they probably dont have much interest in sex

 

if ordinary worker termites follow it then it probably is some other kind of pheromone, not a sex pheromone

 

ballpoint pen ink could contain a volatile organic solvent which MIGHT be chemically similar to some organic chemical produced by termites to send a signal

 

Regretfully, I have a hard time believing this, so i will wait till someone else confirms it. but it seems possible

[ecoli]

http://www.uky.edu/Agriculture/Entomology/ythfacts/resourc/tcherpln/termtrails.htm

http://entomology.unl.edu/k12/termites/papermateinquiry.ppt

http://www.labyrinth.net.au/~dewart/termitesandink.htm

http://entomology.unl.edu/k12/termites/papermateinquiry.ppt

http://www.oc.tu-bs.de/schulz/Spiegel/english/E_Termitentrail_us.html

[Martin]

thanks Coli,

I am glad to see a range of different things confirming what you say.

the last one (Schulz webpage) said he had found BIC pens work best.

 

Several of the others said to use PAPERMATE

 

not all ballpoint pens ink works. the links I followed did not have

definite information about what was in the pen ink that triggered

following by the termites

 

they all seem to agree that whatever it is acts like a TRAIL pheromone

that workers release making other workers follow them. i suppose their

trail pheromones

help them get to the good food locations

 

but maybe the ingredient in the ink is not actually a natural pheromone but just smells like it to the termite.

the last (schulz) webpage gave some organic chemicals that had been identified as pheromones and talked about what was in pen ink.