During our short 2 day stay in Darwin, we spent one day from 8a.m. to 5p.m. touring Litchfield National Park, about an hour and a half from Darwin. Our tour was a fun-filled day of learning and experiencing the wonders of the NT tropics. One of the most fascinating things we learned about were the termites. Did you know that there are magnetic termite mounds? Did you know that just in the NT there are over 70 different kinds of termites? (Google termites and learn for yourself.) They are wonderous!) The picture with all the grass and the smaller mounds leaning one way are the magnetic ones!
The giant mounds made by grass eating termites were the most interesting to us. Basically, these termite mounds are like giant suburbs; population millions. The queen's job is to produce eggs every few seconds. She is constantly fed so that she stays a healthy mother. The king is the fertilizer for the eggs. They both can live up to 15 yrs. The kids live for about 2 yrs. The thousand of worker termites are blind. They go out every day eating the grasses. The soldiers are busy keeping everything going. It is a remarkable food chain for the tropical savannah woodland. These herbivores are monumental recyclers of the vegetable matter. If you consider how many termite mounds are located in this area, you can imagine how this cityside of trillions is at the top of an amazing food chain. We were excited to learn about the whole ecosystem.
Every day is a learning experience, but during this 2 month adventure in Australia, we are happy that our brains are filling with new cell matter!
Goodness - new eggs every second. I'd really have to eat to keep up that pace!
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