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The termites Syntermes dirus measure one centimeter, but for nearly four millennia in Brazil has created an underground network of tunnels and excavations have left 200 million mounds of earth size surface of Cusco, Puno and Madre de Dios together.
"This is the largest known example of bioengineering and construction on the surface of the Earth by a single species – apart from the human being – and all carried out by an insect AFP Roy Funch, American naturalized American biologist.
All this animal breeding work extends over an area of 230 000 km2, in northeastern Brazil .Funch and three other researchers, two Americans and one British, published their conclusions last week in the scientific journal Current Biology .
As stated, the soil excavated by these insect patients to create such a structure is equivalent to "4,000 Giza Pyramids", also millennia in size. Egypt
The inhabitants of the place have always nicknamed "murundus" those mounds 2.5 meters high and about 9 meters in diameter, covered by the vegetation of the "caatinga", the semi-biome. arid north is poor Brazilian.
But deforestation caused by human action made termites more visible and the use of satellite images allowed us to conclude the area they covered. More than 90% belongs to the state of Bahia. "Then it became clear its extension and the scientific importance of the phenomenon," Funch adds.
The images disclosed in the study show vast expanses of land dotted with these nearly identical, uniformly distributed tapered buttes, about 20% apart. meters from each other.
The Design of the City
To determine the antiquity of the work, scientists took soil samples from eleven mounds and checked the date on which they were exposed to the sun. The oldest sample showed 3,820 years old. These ages are comparable to those of the world's oldest termites in Africa indicates the publication.
Now that it has been determined that these termites are part of a large underground "city", the idea of Scientists continues their research on their distribution and functioning. It is known, for example, that termite mounds have a vertical tunnel that connects underground tunnels to the surface.
Instead, the mounds of dirt that remain on the surface are simply the soil removed by termites for their work. "The mounds do not seem to have the function of housing termite nests, they only serve to remove the earth they dig, continually under the ground," Funch explains.
It is also known that these underground structures serve them insects to protect themselves from the "inhospitable (and dangerous) environment of the surface". According to the published study, tunnels are never open to the environment and therefore do not constitute a ventilation system, but a means of communication.
At night, when there is food available, groups of 10 to 50 "workers" and "soldiers" emerge from mounds through temporary tubes of 8 millimeters in diameter, excavated from underneath . After use, the temporary tunnels are hermetically closed.
"We have no idea of the architecture of these" cities "of insects, they must have a room for the queen, a nursery, spaces to store food … and many others, tunnels linking everything, but science ignores everything, "adds the biologist.
AFP
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