This Is How Cathedral Termites Settled In Australia And Built Their 'Empire'

The cathedral termites found in northern Australia came a long way over the oceans and evolved in a way similar to that of humans, migrating from tree tops to the ground. A recent study looks deep into the lives and times of these termites.

According to The Guardian, The cathedral termites that build their mounds sometimes as high as eight meters that house millions of individual insects are found in the Northern Territory, Western Australia and far north Queensland. The origin of the cathedral termites was relatively unknown before the research, said the experts. DNA sequencing showed that the cathedral termites are descendants of first "nasute termites" that arrived in Australia almost 20 million years ago from Asia and South America.

The cathedral termites are believed to have crossed long distances of the ocean on plant matter due to tsunamis or large storms. This first lot of termites used to dwell in trees in coastal areas but over time started to build mounds on the ground and feed on litter and grass, adapting to the dry conditions of northern Australia. The researchers came to know that this colonization happened thrice in the last 20 million years. As the forests started to give in to the dry conditions about 7 to 10 million years ago, the cathedral termites found their way to more moisture in the earth and started to build mounds.

According to The University of Sydney, some of the mounds built by the cathedral termites are equivalent to the world's tallest building four times over. The cathedral termites evolved almost the same way as the human beings, with their ancestors also living in trees some millions of years ago.  

The cathedral termites are 3 mm in height on an average. That makes their creation, the mounds, almost as big as four "Burj Khalifa", the world's tallest structure situated in Dubai, UAE, stacked upon one another in human terms. The research also declares the cathedral termites to be one of the most ecologically successful groups of termites in Australia.

The study was published in the Royal Society journal Biology letters. Going by it, the ability of the cathedral termites to repeatedly evolve the ability to build mounds and to feed on novel substrates in the face of environmental changes has been significant in promoting this success.