Small, soft-bodied insects that eat wood and can cause serious damage to buildings and wooden structures.
From Latin 'termes,' meaning 'a wood-eating worm.' The word entered English in the 1600s and comes from observations of these destructive insects.
Termites have some of nature's most sophisticated social structures—their colonies have specialized roles like humans, with workers, soldiers, and royalty, and they communicate through chemical signals we're only beginning to understand.
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