Watch as termites are trapped in a ‘death spiral’ where they die of exhaustion

A VIDEO recently surfaced on Facebook showing bizarre images of termites running into dead ends.

In the images, viewers can see a ring of termites following each other in a circle.

The termites, which appear to be in a fungus, do this until they die of exhaustion.

The clip, uploaded by Simon Jeffery, was shared on Facebook to the Australia & New Zealand Fungus Identification group.

Jeffrey took the images about five years ago in Maleny, Queensland, Australia.

He told Live Science in an email that he was at a woodworking show when he filmed the incident.

“[They had] all different types of bark and all kinds of critters breaking down the woods… It was a really cool barn,” Jeffery said.

He noted that he wasn’t sure if the stable owner added the termites to the fungus, according to LiveScience.

The phenomenon is the result of strong pheromones produced by termites.

These pheromones are released by termites so that others can find their way back to the nest.

The practice is not uncommon among social insects and can also be seen in ants.

Although the pheromones are intended to guide lost termites back to their pack, they can sometimes result in death.

“In this video, they are engaged in a ‘death spiral,’ which has been well documented in ants and a few termites,” said Thomas Chouvenc, assistant professor of urban entomology at the University of Florida’s Fort Lauderdale Research and Education Center. Living Science.

“When a group of foraging social insects accidentally enters a death spiral, they usually die of exhaustion,” he added.

This is especially true when there is a lot of traffic as the scent is more powerful and attractive.

“For termites, the physical contact of following a predecessor in line is often a simple way to organize good traffic flow,” Chouvenc said.

“Such lines are very common in termites and lead them from A to B. In the case of this video, that line made a loop because of the physical circle from the fungi’s morphology.”

It is not clear when the first termite death spiral was observed, but an ant death spiral was first described in 1921 by American entomologist William Beebe.

Beebe observed a death spiral with a circumference of 300 meters and it reportedly took each ant two and a half hours to make one revolution.