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.
An open-air foraging on termites is an opportunity to study how the castes are organized to obtain the food and simultaneously avoid predators. Syntermes is a Neotropical genus distributed from the south of Venezuela to the north of Argentina. The foraging behavior of this genus has been poorly studied (Constantino. 1998. The University of Kansas Science Bulletin. 55 (13):455 – 518). By filming the foraging behavior, we determined the organization and foraging territory for S. molestus. The foraging territory is characterized by a circular area centered at the exits from which the foraging column originates plus a more ample terminal area whereupon the workers search for food. Such foraging sands showed two variants: those for which the workers forage in a single sand (70%) and those where workers forage in two or three sands (30%). In general, such territories did not exceed 150 cm long and 40 cm wide. Regarding the foraging behavior, it is initiated with the outing of the soldiers (6-7 individuals) in different directions, placing themselves towards the periphery of the soil holes. Following, the workers go out forming a foraging column directed at the source of food with soldiers positioned in the front and periphery of such columns. While on the foraging sands, where the workers cut dry grass, the soldiers position themselves in a defensive posture. The workers carry the food to the openings closing them at the end of the activity. We established the foraged items and the ingested food using the method of dry weight proposed by Miura T. & Matsumoto T. (1998. Insectes Sociaux 45:17–32). We applied a t Test to establish differences in the obtained weights. The food was composed of two groups of items (Rhyncospora globosa, Axonopus anceps and Panicum noides) and Eucaliptus sp.
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