Giant clusters in Japan are making science surprising for this reason

The surprise is related to their fertility. Have you ever seen a termite group with all the clues?

Termites are everywhere. Termites are everywhere, from the countryside to the city, and perhaps you are no stranger to them.

But based on your understanding of termites, have you ever heard that a termite is only a termite? In short, there is no one male figure in it?

If the answer is yes, I guarantee that you are . fooling, because just recently, scientists have found the first termite group to consist entirely of female termites.

These are giant termite nests in Japan. There are no males but they are still alive, still exist and grow very strong.

A giant termite nest.(Illustration).

In fact, most animals on this planet breed through male and female relationships. However, there are also a number of other species that can reproduce monotonous, and can be observed on species such as sharks, lizards, snakes, amphibians (frogs) and some fish species.

Of course, the insect world is also full of asexual reproductive animals. However, not all species have that ability. Like bees and ants, although they only have one princess specialized in reproduction, they still need males to help.

Termites are the same, or at least the science thought so. They also have a lord who is responsible for reproducing the majority of the people of the kingdom. But they also have a male relationship - also called a king. A termite nest will have a balanced number of male and female termites.

However, when studying the termite Glyptotermes nakajimai in Japan, experts from the University of Sydney found that some of their nests had no shadow of the male termite. More precisely, after 1.5 years of studying more than 74 termites across Japan, up to 60% are.

Termites do not have males - this is the first time that science has found out.

When observing the reproductive process, the experts understood more about this process. Usually when mating, the lord holds a large amount of sperm of the male in the body. But with "all-male" termites , this sack is empty. They lay unfertilized eggs - that is, they will only hatch.

"This finding shows that the role of the male in the society of termites is not really clear" - quoted evolutionary biologist Nathan Lo from Sydney University.

In fact, even in groups with male termites, unfertilized eggs also appear and hatch with extremely stable frequency, indicating that the male termites have no common origin. In addition, such termites often appear in isolated remote areas, such as Shikoku Island or Kyushu.

Deeper understanding of genetics, the team found that the separation between these two types turned out to have occurred . 14 million years ago. Lo said that the transition between the two types of nest helps to gain the advantage of being familiar with a new environment .

The transformation between two types of nests helps to gain the advantage of being familiar with a new environment.

"When everything is normal, the reproductive group will reproduce twice as fast, because only one thing is enough" - Lo shared.

"This allows the termites to grow faster, making it easier for them to invade a new environment."

However, these termites have been separated for so long, they seem to be evolving into a new species. According to experts, the difference has been shown in the structure, when the term in the male group has no similar head size, and less warriors.

Until now, they are still the same type of termite. But according to Lo, things may change in the near future.

The study is published in BMC Biology.