Termite Behavior Regarding Presence or Absence of Ink
Introduction
Pheromones are likely involved in all social activities of social insects including foraging, sexual behavior,
defense, nestmate recognition, and caste regulation (Matsuura 2012). This phenomenon can be seen in
many aspects of a termite’s behavior, including how they follow a written line. A student was hiking in a
forest when some termites landed on their notebook, and, seemingly, started to specifically follow what
was written on the paper, instead of moving randomly. Thus, an experiment was tested to study why the
termites had this behavior. The hypothesis being tested was that the ink of pen, specifically, attracts
termites, instead of the color or presence of a line. The dependent variable was the amount of time a
termite spent on a line, both pen or pencil. The independent variable was the presence, or the absence,
of ink lines. The predicted outcome was that termites released on the paper, half-filled with pen lines,
and half with pencil lines, would spend more time on the side filled with ink.
