EPOW - Ecology Picture of the Week

Cathedral Termites

Cathedral Termite Mound (Nasutitermes triodiae), Family Termitidae, Order Isoptera
Northern Territory, Australia

Explanation:  Soaring like the arches of a Medieval cathedral is this immense mound of isopterans ... termites ... here in the hot, arid, tropical "Top End" of north-central Australia.  

We are in beautiful and remote Litchfield National Park, home of eucalyptus woodlands of "woolybutt" and "stringybark" trees (Eucalyptus miniata and E. tetrodonta) and pandanus plants, and wonderful wildlife including ghost bats, sugar gliders, black flying foxes, wallabies, dingos ... and a tiny ceaseless worker known as the cathedral termite.
  

The cathedral-like towers created by this insect
give rise to its name.

The mounds are created by millions of cathedral termites working in unison ... and are built of vegetation, soil, mud, and massive amounts of feces and saliva exuded from the insects as a sort of organic glue. 

The columns are essentially hollow tubes that serve to regulate air flow and maintain internal temperatures with passive air conditioning.

Termite mound architecture is so efficient that it has inspired construction of city buildings, such as the Eastgate Centre in Harare, Zimbabwe.  

This procedure is known as biomimicry. 

Termites self-cool their subterranean burrows because they essentially farm fungus as their main food, and optimal fungus growth requires a regulated temperature.  

So, behold the immensity and remarkable structures of nature,
always our teacher.

  Using the height of my traveling buddy, Deane Lewis, in the photo as a yardstick, I calculated that this cathedral termite mound is about 17.5 feet (5.3 meters) tall !