this post was submitted on 13 Sep 2025
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Some species of termite can effectively molt backwards, meaning they can physically return their bodies to a juvenile stage, AND THEN re-mature from that juvenile stage into a different adult body plan!
So adult worker (medium sized head and mandibles, etc.) -> juvenile morphology -> adult soldier (huge head and mandibles). And other forms I don't remember, think they can go back and then become something with wings, etc. - big bug changes!
And what's crazier is this is done in response to pheromones secreted by the mound's queen. Termite Queen up in the mound playing Sid Meier's Civ lol, controlling her city through different stinks! Too few soldiers after the latest bird incursion? Got a buncha workers with nothing to do? No problem, stink-compel em to go back to goo and come back as what the mound needs!
I got all this from a fairly goofy podcast a buncha years ago - be kind, anonymous grumpy expert, if this is way wrong lol
Stink-compel is definitely going into regular usage for me.
I'm still waiting for my pheromone-overlord 😞