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Disclaimer



There are a lot of people out there "discovering" that termites will follow some inks but not others.
Actually this trick has been known for a very long time (at least 30 years), but lately some researchers are chasing the phenomenon again looking for ways to force the termites to attack poison baits.

So, right across America it is suddenly trendy to do termite labs again. (Has to be better than the last fad of squishing them to see the tiny symbionts in their guts!)

Anyway, I'm not going to spoil the lab for you, but here are six edited emails and replies to help point you in the right direction . . . .

    

                           

> From ???@??? Fri Apr  

> Subject: Re: termites

> Why will termites follow a trail of black ink, but not red ink or pencil?

>







Is this a project? Try a few more inks and you will find that they 

will follow some red inks much better than they do the black 

ones. Try the "Papermate" brand. 

Did you notice that your worker termites are blind? What senses 

do they have left? Why would termites follow a trail?

Cheers

Don





> From ???@??? Sat Apr 19  

> Subject: Re: termites

> Why is it that termites follow a line of ink? 

> 

> After some research, I figured out that something in the pen ink must

> resemble pheromones, since that is what attracts them. I also learned that

> they follow scent trails and if they lose their path, they just wander

> around....blindly.

> This was a question my biology teacher asked my honors class (we were to

> write a report over the possible explanation). I was able to find adequate

> information from your sites, which helped back up my hypothesis.

> Thank you for the feed-back! It was a very interesting experiment! 

> Crystal 





Glad to help. The really fun thing to do would be to try and 

isolate which part of the ink is attractive. You can do this 

easily using paper chromatography and then cut up the split 

colors to see which section is attractive.

There is a lot of interest at the moment into which chemicals

can be used to make termite baits more attractive, so believe

it or not, this neat little exercise your teacher gave you is

very close to cutting edge science!

Cheers

Don





> From ???@??? Fri Oct 03  

> Subject: Re: Termite behavior

> Hi Dr. Don

> I am a student at UMass Amherst. In bio lab we observed that termites

> will follow certain inks. They would wander around to lines of a few

> pens, regardless of the color, and they also wouldn't follow some lines

> that were similiar to that of the lines they "liked" 

> We concluded that the termite was attracted to the sent of the ink. I

> am writting to you to see if you could shine some light on this termite

> behavior. 

> Thanks

> Dan

> d???@student.umass.edu





Your conclusion is correct. You should notice that some inks 

are more attractive than others. You should also be able to 

show that sometimes the agent of attractiveness is a volatile 

chemical.

So why would animals that are blind and live in tunnels want 

to follow a scent?



Hope this helps

Don





> From ???@??? Thu Sep 04  

> Subject: Re: Termites and Ballpoint Pens??

> Do you know why termites would be attracted to one type of ink pen and

> not even phased by a different brand? Recently in a biology lab at

> Northern Arizona University, we placed termites in plastic bins lined

> with regular white typing paper and were instructed to draw two circles

> with a diameter of two centimeters with two different brand ink pens. 

> One was a Bic black ballpoint pen and the other was a Papermate blue

> ballpoint pen. The termites didn't walk into the circle drawn in black

> ink, but they instead walked around the perimeter. Is there any reason

> why this could be? Our professor made it an assignment of ours to

> research this question on the web or find articles related to it. 

> Please e-mail me at: ???@ucc.nau.edu

> Thank you.

> Adam

> Northern Arizona Universtiy

> 







So what's your theory? It isn't hard to come up with a 

plausible explanation once you've considered the 

environment and senses of termites.



Cheers



Don



PS If you try more Papermate you'll find that red works 

a little better than black.







> From ???@??? Sun Sep 28  

> Subject: Re: Termites again...

> Dear Dr. Ewart, 

> Hi, remember me I wrote you earlier in the week about termites. I'm trying

> to form a hypothesis on termite behavior. What I observed in our lab class

> was that some termites followed the ink lines and some did not. What I was

> thinking was does the termite follow its own scent trail looking for food? 

> Since it was out of its natural enviornment and put into a "hostile" one. 

> Now, the termites that did follow the ink lines. Did they sense something

> in the ink similar to that in wood? If so, do you know where I can find

> information on the makeup of ink is in a ballpoint pen? And that of a

> tree, say an oak or any tree? If I'm going in the wrong direction please

> advise ASAP! Am I on the right track in this experiment? Thank you for

> your cooperation.

> 





You're on track. Termites lay trails (from a scent gland) and

tend to follow each other. The scents are volatile (otherwise 

they'd persist too long). The volatiles in some inks are similar. 

Sometimes these ink chemicals are like what is given off by 

decay fungi and bacteria . . . sometimes they are like the 

termite's own scent and sometimes they just smell better than 

the paper. If they are a good trail marker, then the termites 

will orientate with the ink line.

Well, that's the theory, you work out how to prove it.



You can break an ink into its component parts by paper

chromatography. Just make a good blob a third from the bottom of 

a long paper strip and dip the bottom (just the bottom) in the

right solvent. The components get pushed along by the rising 

solvent as capillary action wets the paper fibers and the ink 

components separate according to molecular mass.

Cheers

Don



>Sincerely,

>Ross 



From ???@??? Thu Jan  

Subject: Re: Termites and red ink



>Dr. Don, 

>My name is Jon and I am taking an intro. course to Biology this

>quarter. Today in the lab we studied some termites and their reaction to

>different colors of ink on standard white paper. My lab partners and I

>used blue, green, black, and red Paper mate ink and drew eight inch

>lines with each color. The termites were attracted to the red ink and

>began to follow the red line back and forth. We then drew circles and

>curved lines to see what would happen and they still followed the red

>lines as if they were little trains on tracks. We figured that there

>must be some relation with red and termites until we used different red

>writing sources like red chalk, red markers, and red felt tip pens. The

>only reaction was that one termite seemed appalled by the smell of the

>marker but other than that, they just wandered around aimlessly. There

>was a definite response to the red Papermate ink as explained but my

>peers and I are quite baffled as to why. I forgot to mention that the

>termites were attracted to the black ink but would not follow it like

>they would with the red. Any clues or research to why the termites

>exhibited this kind of behavior? Any info. would definitely help.







Sure. Termites are blind, so color is right out (only the winged 

ones can see and then not so well). The termites' environmental 

clues are mainly smell, moisture gradients, temperature and 

vibration. Of these, smell has to be it. Many orientating chemicals 

are known (called "trail" or "aggregation" pheromones), it is 

likely that the red dye contains a chemical which smells something 

like one of these pheromones. 

Remember that red dye absorbs most visible wavelengths, except 

for the longer ones. These are reflected hence when lit with white 

light, we see red reflected. In making up a black dye, it is usual 

to mix several color dyes so as to absorb all visible light. Thus the 

black ink will have the same chemical as the red, but will also have 

less favorable components. You can show this using paper 

chromatography (a long strip of paper with a thick ink dot near 

one end, hang it upright with the bottom in solvent, just below the 

ink dot) with the right solvent (you'll have to experiment) the dye 

mix will soon separate into the component colours.

Have fun

Don



>Thanks! 

> Jon





Still not sure what it all means? Read it again and mail me if you need, there's a link from the main pages.  

Now, if you've done all the work and are looking at finding some references for a discussion on how this fits into current science, try poking around the International Isoptera Society's site to find some likely researchers . . . .

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