Panamanian termite’s fastest mandible strike in the world

This video is called Termites – Life’s Ultimate Architects.

From Animal Science Blog:

Fastest mandible strike in the world

A single hit on the head by the termite Termes panamensis (Snyder), which possesses the fastest mandible strike ever recorded, is sufficient to kill a would-be nest invader, report Marc Seid and Jeremy Niven, post-doctoral fellows at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and Rudolf Scheffrahn from the University of Florida.

Niven and Seid conducted the study at the Smithsonian’s new neurobiology laboratory in Panama, established by a donation from the Frank Levinson Family Foundation. The laboratory was built to use Panama’s abundant insect biodiversity to understand the evolution of brain miniaturization.

The drywood termite, Cryptotermes secundus, eavesdrops on its more aggressive subterranean competitor, Coptotermes acinaciformis, to avoid contact with it, according to scientists from CSIRO Entomology and the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy: here.

Ancient Termite Spilled Its Guts in Amber: here.

Termites which formed colonies on the island of Madagascar took with them fungi living with them in symbiosis: here.