When a hike through the dipterocarp forest slows down, it’s usually because you’re looking up at the canopy or scanning individual leaves for isolated subjects. But if you stop walking out of sheer boredom near the junction of the Beccari Rattan Valley and Selang trails, the forest floor reveals a completely different kind of chaos happening right at your boots.
Flowing over a fallen, weathered log was a dense, endless highway of dark processional termites (Hospitalitermes sp.).
While most people associate termites with subterranean mud tubes and hidden damage, Hospitalitermes breaks all the rules. They are among the few open-air foraging termites on Earth, forming vast marching armies that can mobilize up to half a million individuals in a single trip.
The Architecture of a Swarm
Getting down close with the macro setup reveals the intense coordination required to keep a column like this moving smoothly across rough bark.
- Lichen Harvesters: Unlike wood-eating termites, Hospitalitermes species are micro-epiphyte grazers. Workers march out in long, organized lines to climb high into the forest canopy, gnawing off bits of lichen, moss, and bark algae, before rolling them into tiny food balls to carry back to their nest.
- Chemical Soldiers: Flanking the outer edges of the worker stream are the soldiers. Belonging to the subfamily Nasutitermitinae, these soldiers don’t rely on huge crushing jaws; instead, their heads taper into a distinct pointed nozzle called a nasus. Through this nozzle, they can squirt a sticky, irritating chemical spray to deter aggressive ants and other predators.
- Textural Mass: Under the flash diffusion, the individual shiny black abdomens and dark brown thoraces contrast sharply against the deep grooves of the rotting wood substrate.
Finding Magic in the Collective
It’s easy to feel like a trail run is turning up empty when you aren’t spotting flashy solitary hunters or rare, elusive frogs. But taking a moment to sit on a log and watch a massive, living river of Hospitalitermes termites reminded me that biodiversity isn’t always about finding the rarest single specimen—sometimes, it’s about appreciating the sheer scale of the rainforest’s collective energy.
Field Notes:
- Location: Kubah National Park (Palmetum to Selang Trail loop)
- Subject: Open-air Processional Termites (Hospitalitermes sp.)
- Behavior: Mass open-air foraging procession across rotten logs
