The termite queen is the exclusive egg-layer and central figure of her colony, a role requiring a specialized anatomy. Over a lifespan that can last for decades, she transforms from a winged, mobile insect into a stationary reproductive center. This biological shift is dedicated to producing the vast number of offspring required to build and sustain a termite society. Her body is optimized for the singular purpose of laying eggs.
Core Body Structure
Before becoming the colony’s matriarch, a queen termite possesses a standard insect body divided into a head, thorax, and abdomen. Her head is equipped with chewing mouthparts for consuming cellulose materials, along with a pair of straight, bead-like antennae. These antennae are used to sense touch, heat, and vibrations, which is important for navigating and communicating during the colony’s founding stages.
Attached to the thorax are six legs, providing mobility during her early life. A feature of the thorax are the wing scars, which are the remnants of two pairs of wings from her time as a flying “alate.” After a nuptial flight where she mates, she sheds these wings to establish a new nest. At this stage, her body is comparable in size to other termites, but this form is temporary.
The Physogastric Abdomen
The most distinct feature of a mature termite queen is her swollen abdomen, a condition known as physogastry. This transformation is driven by the enlargement of her internal reproductive organs. As her ovaries grow to accommodate a high rate of egg production, her abdomen distends to a size that can be hundreds of times larger than a worker termite, sometimes reaching the length of a human finger. This growth renders her almost entirely immobile.
The queen’s abdominal exoskeleton undergoes a change to facilitate this expansion. The hard dorsal and ventral plates, called tergites and sternites, become separated. Connecting these plates is a stretched, pale, and translucent intersegmental membrane, giving her body a pulsating, grub-like appearance. This tissue is so thin that internal organs can sometimes be seen through it. Reliant on her offspring, the queen is fed, groomed, and protected by worker termites.
Reproductive and Glandular Systems
Housed within the physogastric abdomen is a productive reproductive system. The queen’s body is dominated by a pair of large ovaries, which contain hundreds of individual egg-producing tubes called ovarioles. This system allows her to produce a continuous stream of eggs, with some species laying up to 30,000 in a single day. This production fuels the colony’s growth and maintains its population.
A specialized organ called the spermatheca is also present within her abdomen. Here, she stores sperm from a single mating event with the king, which occurs at the colony’s inception. This supply allows her to fertilize millions of eggs over her lifespan. The queen also possesses glands that secrete pheromones, which are chemical signals that regulate the colony’s social structure, control the development of different castes, and suppress the reproductive capabilities of other termites.