Tree termite facts for kids

Nasutitermes walkeri, often called the tree termite, is a special kind of termite. You can find these termites in eastern New South Wales and southeastern Queensland, Australia. They are known for building their homes high up in trees!

What Do Tree Termites Look Like?

The worker termites are small, but the soldier termites are easier to spot. They have round heads and long, straight jaws called mandibles. Their bodies are a yellowish-brown color. These soldier termites are usually about 5 to 7 millimeters long.

Where Do Tree Termites Live?

Nasutitermes walkeri lives only in eastern Australia. You can find them in eastern New South Wales and southeastern Queensland. They live in mountains and near the coast. These termites prefer areas with scrubland and lots of trees.

How Do Tree Termites Live?

Building Their Homes

Tree termites start building their nests in the tops of trees. They often pick spots where the tree is already a little damaged. This damage might be from fire or from the wood starting to rot. Later, they build a much bigger nest. These main nests can be very high up, sometimes as tall as 20 meters (about 65 feet) above the ground!

The outside of their nest feels thin, almost like paper. Inside, the nest structure is also quite delicate.

What They Eat

These termites mostly find their food on the ground. They love to eat moist or rotting wood. This wood might be far away from their main nest tree.

Getting to Their Food

To reach their food, they build special tunnels. They create tubes that go down the tree trunk. From there, they make more tubes or underground passages. These passages help them travel through the soil to find damp wood.

Tree termites will sometimes attack wooden fence posts or poles. However, they usually do not damage the wood inside houses. This is unless the wood in the house is already damp or rotting.