5d ago

Two of the World’s Worst Termites Hooked Up in Florida—and Now We’re Screwed

In October 2024, the researchers discovered a full-blown hybrid colony in a Fort Lauderdale park, which had likely been active for more than five years before being detected. Chouvenc said that there are likely many more hundreds of colonies across South Florida that have not yet been found.

Both parent species are prolific breeders, capable of forming massive colonies and spreading rapidly. The fact that these hybrids are swarming—and potentially just as fertile—raises major red flags.

Fort Lauderdale’s status as a global boating hub may accelerate the spread. “This may be a Florida story now, but it likely won’t stay just in Florida,” Chouvenc warned. Private boats have previously been implicated in termite spread across the U.S. and internationally.

14 comments

This may be a Florida story now, but it likely won’t stay just in Florida
What a perfect encapsulation of recent history

I saw a solution to this and many other problems on the television the other day:
- According to this article, they've already hybridized in Taiwan, too, so it might be too late, but I'm not going to stop you from dumping Florida into the Gulf of America™

*Now we're chewed

But is this hybrid then an even faster breeder, massiver colony maker, rapidlier spreader? Or maybe we'll get lucky and turns out they are kinda lazy
- If the hybrid population is fertile, it has at least as much survival fitness as the "best" of the parents. But probably more because it can couple advantageous traits from both for that environment.
  So, in this case, it's better to be pessimistic: they'll be probably fast breeders, massive colony makers and rapid spreaders, since all those traits would help them to spread further.

University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) report that the Formosan subterranean termite and the Asian subterranean termite are crossbreeding and producing viable offspring in South Florida neighborhoods.
Woops

US needs just an executive order for termites to stop interbreeding.
- Unfortunately vermin from Florida run the country now, I don't think they will take action against their own.

They don't even say why they are the "worst termites". What makes them worse than others?
- The actual article is linked right there on the page
- Dude, it's in the synopsis in the post.
  Both parent species are prolific breeders, capable of forming massive colonies and spreading rapidly. The fact that these hybrids are swarming—and potentially just as fertile—raises major red flags.
  
  There are termites like that all over the world. Have you been to Africa? There are termite mounds bigger than 3 storey houses sticking out of the ground there (no photos unfortunately but Guiness World Record entry)). Looks at these ones in Brazil. Not only are they numerous, the area they cover is the size of Britain!
  The article is rubbish. There's no comparison, no more information about the type of termite what their average breeding cycle is compared to other termites, what they eat, what they are dangerous to, which climate they live in, etc. Garbage article.

'Florida termite' could be the start of many a great news story, followed by a mugshot of the disheveled and remorseful arthropod.

14 comments