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Often mistaken for a trail of marauding ants, the lichen-feeding Processional Termites (Hospitalitermes spp.) are quite unlike most of their kin not only in the fact that they don't eat wood, but they also forage in the open, often during daylight. Their wide columns of workers can form an impressive sight as they flow like a stream over a hundred meters in the Bornean rainforest, returning with balls of lichen they have scraped from the bark of branches high in the canopy. How can they afford to venture out in the open whereas most other termites are furtive creatures of darkness and secrecy? The answer lies with their defense: they devote as much as 30% of their ranks to soldiers, which are equipped with chemical-squirting nozzles on their heads to repel ants, their prime enemy. Sarawak, Malaysia (Borneo).

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© Chien C. Lee
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Borneo, Insects
Often mistaken for a trail of marauding ants, the lichen-feeding Processional Termites (Hospitalitermes spp.) are quite unlike most of their kin not only in the fact that they don't eat wood, but they also forage in the open, often during daylight. Their wide columns of workers can form an impressive sight as they flow like a stream over a hundred meters in the Bornean rainforest, returning with balls of lichen they have scraped from the bark of branches high in the canopy. How can they afford to venture out in the open whereas most other termites are furtive creatures of darkness and secrecy? The answer lies with their defense: they devote as much as 30% of their ranks to soldiers, which are equipped with chemical-squirting nozzles on their heads to repel ants, their prime enemy. Sarawak, Malaysia (Borneo).