Page 32 - aruba-today-20191123

A32 FEATURE
Saturday 23 November 2019
In Brazil backlands, termites built millions of dirt mounds

By VICTOR CAIVANO unteer in 1977 and stayed.
PETER PRENGAMAN The mounds are also very
Associated Press old. Radioactive testing
PALMEIRAS, Brazil (AP) — determined they ranged
Roy Funch, an American in age from 690 to 3,820
botanist who has lived years.
and worked in Brazil's hard- "It could have been a gi-
scrabble northeast for de- ant termite (that built the
cades, long looked at huge mounds)," joked Luciano
cone-shaped mounds of Oliveira, a local who lives
mud in the distance and in a house made with earth
wondered. taken from a mound. "No-
What built them? How body knows."
many were there? How While many people view
long had they been there? termites as pests because
After years of failing to some species eat wood,
generate interest in the and thus homes, the social
mounds, a chance meet- insects are also some of
ing with an English expert the world's best engineers,
on social insects, Stephen building vast networks of
Martin, led to remarkable underground tunnels and
discoveries: There are over huge heaps of dirt.
200 million mounds built An Associated Press jour-
by termites that stretch A soldier termite with large pincers stands guard while smaller worker termites gather dead leaves nalist who accompanied
across 88,800 square miles and cut them into pieces near Lencois, Brazil, Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. Funch to watch the noctur-
(230,000 square kilometers), Associated Press nal termites at work saw sol-
about the size of Great Brit- ing baked in the hot sun, honey bees and ants in the cumstances we wouldn't dier termites about a half-
ain. the already-hard dirt and state of Bahia. He, too, was see them because they inch long and with large
What's more, some of the clay become like stone. curious about the mounds. wouldn't persist for such a pincers stand guard while
dirt heaps are nearly 4,000 Poor people in the area "I was intrigued because of long time." smaller workers gathered
years old. use chunks of the mounds their patterns," he said. In more humid areas where dead leaves and cut them
"While the Romans were to build adobe houses. By chance, Martin and the same species lives, in smaller pieces, making
building their columns, Funch says he wrote two Funch met next to a river such as the Amazon, the "click, click, click" sounds
their buildings, these ter- articles about the mounds in Lencois, a small town in mounds are eroded by rain as they worked. When a
mites were building their in Brazilian publications, Bahia about 30 miles (50 ki- and wind. But the Caat- flashlight was shined on
mounds," Funch said, add- but they didn't draw any lometers) west of the edge inga ecoregion gets rainfall the termites for a few sec-
ing that the dirt piles rep- attention. Without exper- of the mound area. only a few weeks a year. onds, they scurried down
resent the largest biocon- tise in insects or the world When Martin mentioned The desert shrubland veg- small holes. Rob Pringle, a
struction of any species of scientific publishing, he seeing the mounds while he etation covers and camou- Princeton biology professor
other than humans. wasn't sure how to take his was driving around, Funch flages the mounds in large who has studied termites
The mounds, seen in vari- research to the next level. told him: "You just met the swaths of the area, one and their mounds in Kenya,
ous places in a vast desert- Asking local people didn't only guy in Brazil who is of the reasons they were Mozambique and Namib-
like region called the Caat- help. working on these mounds." essentially hiding in plain ia, said fighting between
inga, stand between 6 and "Some would say they are The two teamed up, and sight. termite colonies can lead
13 feet (2 to 4 meters) high termites, some would say their research was pub- Funch said improvements to patterns in the mounds
and are spaced roughly ants, some would say: 'Well, lished Nov. 19 in Current Bi- in Google Earth's imag- they produce.
equally apart — between they have always been ology. ing in recent years helped The fact that the Brazil study
52 and 72 feet (16 to 22 there. They are part of na- The pair concluded the them understand the ex- found the termites didn't
meters). ture,'" Funch said. mounds were built by Syn- tent of the formations via fight unless they were from
To landowners who clear Enter Martin, an entomolo- termes dirus, a large ter- spatial mapping. colonies several kilometers
brush to plant crops, the gist at the University of mite species that feeds "The mounds go on forev- apart means there is a lot
mounds are a nuisance. Salford in England. A few on leaves and lives under- er in every direction," said more to discover about
Bulldozing them is difficult years ago, Martin was in ground. While the termites Funch, who initially came to how termites create such
because over years of be- northeastern Brazil studying are found in the region, Brazil as a Peace Corps vol- patterns.q
the researchers didn't find
them actively working in
the larger mounds, but in-
stead along the edges of
areas with mounds.
Cutting into several
mounds, they found only
a small tube-like hole go-
ing to the top of each
one, not an extensive pat-
tern of tunnels throughout.
That suggested the ter-
mites were simply finding a
place to chuck earth from
underground, where they
build their tunnels. "These
Giant termite mounds cover a field near Palmeiras, Brazil, Fri- are just waste heaps," said American botanist Roy Funch sits on top of a giant termite
day, Nov. 22, 2019. mound near Palmeiras, Brazil, Saturday, Nov. 24, 2018.
Associated Press Martin. "Under normal cir- Associated Press