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Pound for pound, the weight of all termites in the world is greater than that of all human-beings put together. Termites cannot digest their own food. Instead, within their gut they have colonies of microscopic bacteria and protozoa, and it is these tiny creatures that digest the wood and then excrete carbohydrate, which the termite is able to convert to its own energy. More than 100 species of bacteria and protozoa live in the gut of termites. Termites in the rainforest are the recyclers of matter. They help decompose fallen tree branches to quickly re-fertilize the forest floor. Without these little creatures there would be no Amazon.

Credits

Scripted and presented by Romina Castagnino, Produced by Leo Plunkett at Relevant Films (relevantfilms.co.uk) in association with Fauna Forever Volunteer Programs (faunaforever.org). Music: Dexter Britain - Losing Love

Download, Licence and Sharing

This video was created to download and share freely for educational purposes. It may not be used or reproduced for commercial purposes (for monetary gain or the promotion of any private entity) without express permission from the Alliance for Research and Conservation in the Amazon (ARCAmazon) who can be contacted using info [at] conservetheamazon [dot] org Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 licence (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)