Termite Swarm

October 30, 2008

Yesterday evening, we watched this sudden termite swarm in Indira Nagar…

We saw the termites flying in their hundreds, around the street lamps:

termites flying with flash

I tried to get them against the light, but only got this image:

termites in the air

Nabeel Mohamed, another person intrigued by the swarming, was trying to capture the image of the termites coming out of the ground on his mobile phone camera:

291008 nabeel documenting termite swarm

You can see the hundreds of non-winged grubs as well if you look closely:

termites aleates on he ground indira nagar 291008

Karthik had told me about these termites, so I decided to look it up on the net, and here’s some info about termite swarms:

one

two

and three

Pity that such a lovely sight actually means…destructive pests! These termites are called “eeshal” in Tamizh, and Shashidhar Bellur (NTP) informs me that they are called “geddalu” or “gejjalu” in Kannada.

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