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How to identify it
- The soldier is the key: a head longer than broad, antennae not darkened toward the tip, and mandibles shorter than the head, curved throughout, with a large cone-shaped tooth projecting inward near the base of each jaw. Gnathamitermes soldiers have nearly square heads, darkened antennae and long straight jaws with the tooth below the middle.[1]
- Swarmers are small, typically under 7/16 inch with wings and about 1/5 to 1/4 inch without, dark brown over head, thorax and abdomen, with a small head bearing a large, long, narrow fontanel. They fly in summer after rains, at dawn and at dusk.[1]
- Unlike Gnathamitermes it builds no exposed galleries; instead it covers its feeding sites with dark carton and extends underground galleries over partly buried decaying wood.[1]
Look-alikes
| Look-alike | How to tell them apart |
|---|---|
| Desert termites (Gnathamitermes perplexus) | The mud-tube builder that plasters sheets of soil over dead grass and shrubs and eats only the weathered surface; its swarmers are much larger and banded, and its soldiers have long straight jaws.[1] |
| Desert subterranean termite (Heterotermes aureus) | Arizona's most destructive termite, with slender, straight-jawed soldiers whose heads are longer and narrower than the oval heads of Amitermes and Gnathamitermes, and shelter tubes that climb foundations into structural wood.[1] |
| Florida darkwinged subterranean termite (Amitermes floridensis) | A relative in the same genus from Florida, far outside this species' southwestern range.[1] |
Where it lives
Throughout the Southwest: southeastern California, southern Nevada, Arizona, Texas and western Mexico, preferring habitat near washes and dry streambeds.[1]
Biology and life cycle
A subterranean termite of the family Termitidae confined to desert and arid lands. It typically attacks partially buried decaying wood, running its underground galleries over the outside of the wood under a cover of dark carton, and it eats wood beyond the weathered surface rather than just the outer layer.[1]
It also feeds on dung. Researchers who compared colonies collected from cow dung with a wood-feeding termite found Firmicutes and Spirochaetes dominating its hindgut microbes, with genes for breaking down hemicellulose and using fixed nitrogen overrepresented relative to the wood feeder, a pattern consistent with the different diet.[3]
Its soldiers defend the colony chemically. Head-capsule extracts yielded a mixture of bisabolene sesquiterpenes that the soldier secretes onto its head around the frontal gland pore; alarmed soldiers were avoided by the ants Pogonomyrmex rugosus and Iridomyrmex humilis, and the mixture repelled foraging I. humilis workers in laboratory tests.[2]
Damage and signs
- Not a serious economic pest. The University of Arizona says it will not cause structural damage to a home and lists it, with Gnathamitermes, among termites that only occasionally and to a far lesser degree infest wooden structures; what a homeowner is likely to meet is its carton on a cholla stump touching the soil, at the base of a mesquite or on a fence post.[1]
Health risk
None described; the extension source treats it as a nuisance insect of decaying wood and dung, not a risk to people.[1]
Control
Prevention
Chemical treatment is not necessary unless Wheeler's termite is found in a structure; carton on stumps, mesquite trunks or fence posts outdoors calls for no action.[1]
When to call a professional
If termites are found in a building, have the species confirmed from soldiers or swarmers, because the desert subterranean termite, which does attack sound structural wood, flies at the same season and builds tubes up foundations.[1]
Common questions
- There is a crust of dark material on an old fence post and the cholla stump beside it. Termites?
- Very likely Wheeler's desert termite, which covers its feeding sites with dark carton. It feeds on buried or decaying wood and will not damage the house.[1]
- How do I tell it from the desert termite that makes mud sheets on dead grass?
- Wheeler's termite makes no exposed mud galleries, its swarmers are small and uniformly dark brown, and its soldiers have short curved jaws with a cone-shaped tooth near the base instead of long straight ones.[1]
- Why don't ants clean out the colony?
- The soldiers secrete a bisabolene mixture onto their heads; in laboratory tests it repelled foraging Iridomyrmex humilis workers, and ants of two species avoided alarmed soldiers.[2]
Sources
- University of Arizona Cooperative Extension, “Arizona Termites of Economic Importance, az1369 (Baker and Marchosky, June 2005).” extension.arizona.edu/sites/extension.arizona.edu/files/pubs/az1369.pdf (accessed 2026-11-10)
- Journal of Chemical Ecology (Springer), “Scheffrahn, Gaston, Sims and Rust (University of California, Riverside). Identification of the defensive secretion from soldiers of the North American termite, Amitermes wheeleri (Desneux) (Isoptera: Termitidae). Journal of Chemical Ecology 9: 1293-1305 (1983), PMID 24407859.” pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24407859/ (accessed 2026-11-10)
- PLoS ONE (Public Library of Science), “He, Ivanova, Kirton, Allgaier, Bergin, Scheffrahn, Kyrpides, Warnecke, Tringe and Hugenholtz. Comparative metagenomic and metatranscriptomic analysis of hindgut paunch microbiota in wood- and dung-feeding higher termites. PLoS ONE 8: e61126 (2013), PMC3625147.” pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3625147/ (accessed 2026-11-10)
- iNaturalist, “Amitermes wheeleri taxon page (order and family).” www.inaturalist.org/taxa/296474 (accessed 2026-11-10)