Dayaleth Alfonzo, Agroecologia/ Biologia de Organismos, Universidad Bolivariana de Venezuela/ Universidad Simon Bolivar, Calle Leonardo Da Vinci/ Apdo 89000, Los Chaguaramos, Caracas, Venezuela and Solange Issa, Biologia de Organismos, Universidad Simon Bolivar, Apdo. 89000, Caracas, Venezuela.
Foraging behavior is often a collective activity composed of integrated actions of individuals (Pasteels, J. And Bordereau, C. 1998. Communication in Social Insects, pp. 193-215). The polytheism could be based upon sex, size, morphological characteristic, and age. The role of the castes in the division of labor on Isopteran is difficult to study because the majority of the termites foraging under covered galleries. Syntermes is a Neotropical genus distributed from the south of Venezuela until the north of Argentina. The specie, S. molestus, forms big epigeal nest and foraging on open air over grass. By filming the foraging behavior, we determined if this specie present polytheism between castes. The data was analyzed by 2 x 2 Contingency Tables to establish the main activity of each caste involucres foraging behavior. In addition, a biometric study was made to establish differences between workers and soldiers (widest and longest head capsule, WH and LH, respectively); these were analyzed with ANOVA and Tukey Multiple Means. The results of the observation over 9 nests show that S. molestus foragers caste has a sociometric trimorphism among workers and a monomorphic soldier. The three castes of workers can be distinguished as minor (LH: 2.18±0.04 cm; WH: 1.94 ± 0.04 cm), medium (LH: 2.68±0.11 cm; WH: 2.15 ± 0.04 cm) and major (LH: 3.17±0.14 cm; WH: 2.56 ± 0.06 cm). We, also observed three kind of basic tasks: Worker carrying soil particles from inside nest to outside; foragers looking and carrying grass to inside nest and soldiers as guardians of the foragers. Polytheism between workers was clear, while minor and medium workers carrying soil particles; major workers were cutting and carrying grass from foraging site to the nest.
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