Morphological Characteristics of Different Casts in Odontotermes Formosanus Shiraki

Odontotermes Formosanus Shiraki is one of the most destructive pests for forest, agriculture crops and even dams and boats in south parts of china. The species is endemic to south, west, and south east of China, and other countries such as Taiwan, Myanmar, and Taiwan. So, the name Formosanus has given to these kinds of termites traced back to Formosa in Taiwan that first found and classified. Because the eggs need a temperature above 20 to be hatched, they only live in tropical and sub-tropical regions. They usually make subterranean cavities in a depth of 1-3 meter. In addition to queen and king, there are different kind casts in the nest, alated or reproductives, workers, soldiers, and larvae. As the termites are eusocial insects, each cast has its own duty and morphology. In this paper we described the morphology of different casts. As eggs are the base of any nests and sign of healthy nest we start from them then larvae, workers, soldiers, alated and queen and king. In addition, based on morphology differences male and female alated can be recognized. At the end we tried to explain about morphological differences between queen and king and their sizes.1