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Long
days spent searching for termites in the tropics may hold little appeal for
the masses, but for me it represented
a great opportunity. As the sales
manager of the LESCO Service Center® in Weston, Florida, I was
pleased to be part of an industry/academic team traveling to my native
Nicaragua
in search of new termite species. Working 14-hour days, we searched
for termites throughout the largest country in Central America.
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The
Nicaragua termite survey team (from left to right): Rudi Scheffrahn,
University of Florida; Jim Chase, Terminix International; Bayardo
Herrera, LESCO, Inc.; Jorge Moreno, Bayer CropScience; Jan
Krecek and Vinda Maharajh, University of Florida; Danilo Barquero,
the group’s guide; and John Mangold, Terminix International.
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In addition
to myself, the survey team included Rudi Scheffrahn, Jan Krecek and
Vinda Maharajh of the University of Florida – Fort
Lauderdale; Jim Chase and John Mangold from Terminix International;
Jorge Moreno
from Bayer CropScience and Danilo Barquero, our local facilitator.
Terminix and Bayer CropScience provided financial support for the
research effort.
These people travel extensively conducting insect research and they are
passionate about their work. Our headquarters was a hotel in the 500-year-old
centrally located city of Grenada and we would get up at 3:00 a.m. in order
to reach our first search site by 5:00 a.m. Our team was so enthusiastic
that before the truck had even come to a complete stop, we were jumping
out to see what we could find.
We were rarely disappointed. During our weeklong stay, we collected about
1,000 termite colony samples from several regions of the country, including
the mountainous area north of Managua, from the twin volcanoes on the Lake
Nicaragua island of Ometepe (the site of many Indian artifacts) and from
the Bluefields seaport area on the Caribbean coast. We found our termites
on roadsides and trails, in dead tree branches, stumps, fence posts, tree
and ground nests, under rocks and, yes, even beneath piles of cow manure.
And termites
weren’t all we found. Along the way, we also
stumbled upon poisonous snakes (a highlight for the snake-loving
Jim Chase
from Terminix), colorful parrots, monkeys, beautiful insects
and lots of
scorpions.
Ultimately,
we collected 34 species of termites in 20 genera, including many never
before recorded in Nicaragua. (A genus – plural: genera – is
a classification grouping that includes closely related species.)
According
to Dr. Scheffrahn, an entomology professor at the University of Florida – Fort
Lauderdale and our team leader, only six genera were recognized in
Nicaragua before
our trip. He also
told
us that
in Florida, where the termite population is considered
quite diverse, there
are only
eight native genera.
Dr. Scheffrahn
also pointed out that the drywood genus, Marginitermes, our group found
was previously known to
be only in Mexico.
And a dampwood genus, Comatermes, we came across had
been previously identified
in
Panama, but never in Nicaragua. Other discoveries included
four
soldierless subterranean
species, including one species with blue-winged alates.
It’s
also exciting to realize that several termite species
collected on our trip
may be new to science and will have to be named later.
For me, the number of termites found on this trip and the commitment of
the people I traveled with made this the experience of a lifetime. Pest
control has become a very important part of the LESCO business and we want
to be proactive. By locating and identifying these destructive insects
before they become a problem in the U.S. and elsewhere, researchers can
study their behavior and prepare us to do battle when the time comes. A
good example is the Nasutitermes costalis tree termite recently eradicated
from Dania Beach, Florida. The more we learn, the more we can stay on the
forefront of control.
We were
all amazed at what we saw and what we found on our expedition. It was
beyond our expectations. We did
not visit
the northern
Caribbean coast of Nicaragua and I think everyone would
like to go back and
see what the termite population is like in that area.
I know I would.
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