Schedorhinotermes lamanianus

Major and minor soldiers of Schedorhinotermes lamanianus produce a mixture of ten aliphatic ketones (146-155) when their colonies are disturbed. No wound is necessary for the toxic effect to appear which suggests that the long hydrocarbon chains of these defensive substances provide high lipid solubility and thus facilitate penetration on the cuticle of the enemy (502, 548). 

Detoxication mechanisms employed by the lower termites Prorhino-termes simplex and Schedorhinotermes lamanianus were investigated. Soldiers of these two species secrete nitroalkanes and vinyl ketones, respectively, in response to colony disturbance. Workers of these termites die when exposed to the volatiles of the other species, but survive when exposed to volatiles from conspecific soldiers (529). The workers have substrate-specific alkene reductases which, in the presence of a reduced cofactor, catalyze the reduction of the electron-deficient double bond of the unsaturated eletrophilic group. The alkanes are then recycled in vivo to acetate (see Fig. 2). 

Kaiss, M. and Leuthold, R. H. (1975) Mechanisms of chemical orientation in Hodothermes mossambicus and Schedorhinotermes lamanianus. Orientation mediated by pheromones in social insects. In Pheromones and Defensive Secretions in Social Insects (Noirot, Ch., Howse, P. E. and Le Masne, G., eds) pp. 197-211, lUSSI, Dijon. 

Table 16.1 Median lethal doses (at 48 h) of components of Prorhinotermes simplex and Schedorhinotermes lamanianus defensive secretions, and their detoxification products. (From Spanton and Prestwich, 1981)...

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