Termites are often confused with ants. An alternative name for them is white ants, and, as can be gleaned from that name, the workers do look very similar in shape to an ant. They are a milky white colour.
However, it is not just the workers that you need to be able to spot. The soldiers, who protect the workers, usually have an orange coloured head that has large mandible pinchers, which they use when attacking an enemy. If you uncover a termite working, it is likely that you will see more soldiers than workers as they rush to protect their food source.
Another termite type you need to be on the lookout for is the swarmer, or alate. These are the winged termite that swarms in search of new food sources. Once they find one, they will mate, lose their wings and become the king and queen of a new colony. They look like the worker, except they have wings.
The last variant is one that you will not see normally, the king and the queen. While the king looks fairly normal, the queen is enormous compared to all the others. She has a massive swollen abdomen that can be up to 30 centimetres in length and can lay up to 2000 eggs a day. She can live for more than 25 years, making the number of offspring one queen can produce in the tens of millions.
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