Genus Marginitermes · 边白蚁属

Morphology

The descriptions below are an adaptation of the original genus-level accounts; terms follow the meaning of the source, and the original is not transcribed verbatim.

Diagnostic characters

The alate is very similar to Incisitermes and difficult to distinguish; the soldier differs from Incisitermes in having a ridge between the frons and the vertex, the third antennal segment greatly elongated, and the anterolateral corners of the pronotum serrate.

Alate

Pale yellow; eye diameter 0.46–0.48 mm, ocelli about 0.01 mm from the compound eye; antennae 16 segments; posterior margins of the first and second marginal teeth of the left mandible slightly shorter than the anterior margin of the third marginal tooth; posterior margin of the second marginal tooth of the right mandible slightly longer than the molar plate; pronotum slightly narrower than the head; wings transparent; radial sector with 8–9 branches, the first branch at about 1/3 of the wing length; media weak, unsclerotised, lying between the radial sector and the cubitus almost to the wing apex; arolium always absent.

Soldier

Head long, the anterior part inclined downwards at about 40°; a raised ridge between the frons and the vertex, thicker and higher above the antennal bases; eyes distinct, slightly pigmented; antennae 10–11 segments, the first and second dark brown and heavily sclerotised, the third extremely long, club-shaped and dark, about equal to the sum of the following 5–7 segments; mandibles long and slender, toothed, the basal tubercle distinct; pronotum as wide as the head, the anterior margin deeply concave, the anterolateral corners irregularly serrate, the sides evenly rounded, without a median notch; femora slightly swollen.

Sources: Krishna K. 1961. A generic revision and phylogenetic study of the family Kalotermitidae (Isoptera). Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 122: 303–408., pp. 358–361 This text is an adaptation, not a verbatim transcription of the original.