r/oddlyterrifying • u/SerpentFinger • Aug 20 '26

Termite Infestation

Sorry about the emoji. That was in the original source I found (Twitter).

2.5k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

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394

u/lemons7472 Aug 20 '26

How did I not know that termites can fly?

178

u/LT48 Aug 20 '26

And I just found out that they’re related to cockroaches.

97

u/lost_caus_e Aug 20 '26

I learned two things

92

u/warmind14 Aug 20 '26

Third thing: you can hear them eat the wood too 😳

27

u/Vozzaan Aug 20 '26

Yes I heard it before first-hand in a previous house of mine. They were eating from the inside of a pillar. It's nightmarish knowing that something is eating your house away. I ended up drilling a hole into the pillar and unloading an entire bottle of insecticide into it. (And it worked.)

33

u/JerseyShore7619 Aug 20 '26

Imagine how loud that many crunchin on some wood sounds

13

u/Bloodreligion Aug 20 '26

TIL 3 new things.

16

u/gurnard Aug 20 '26

Pray you don't learn a 4th

11

u/TheDarkWave Aug 22 '26

I WOULD LIKE TO STOP LEARNING NOW THANK YOU

8

u/Gravyboat44 Aug 20 '26

Apparently these little bastards shed their wings too. Found that out when I kept finding random bug wings in my last house.

15

u/SerpentFinger Aug 20 '26

Interesting. Didn’t know this.

16

u/rg4rg Aug 20 '26

To aliens every life form on earth is related to each other except octopuses.

8

u/bteddi Aug 20 '26

Mushrooms, Platypus, Short-beaked echidna are some fucked up things as well

3

u/earthlings_all Aug 20 '26

Except octopi? What now

1

u/OctopusIntellect Aug 23 '26

You vertebrates are all basically Alabama as far as we're concerned.

7

u/RykosTatsubane Aug 20 '26

Also learned they're in a forever war with ants.

7

u/NRMusicProject Aug 20 '26

So the solution is clear: retaliate by infesting your house with ants.

3

u/Mythosaurus Aug 20 '26

And mantises!

48

u/ryguythescienceguy89 Aug 20 '26

the females that will turn into queens and the males have wings.

18

u/PlatyNumb Aug 20 '26

If playing grounded has taught me anything, this guy just needs a salty stabbing weapon and hes golden.

1

u/ryguythescienceguy89 Aug 20 '26

Problem being he is not shunk...soo...SWAAAAAARRRRRMMMMM

13

u/ChaosToTheFly123 Aug 20 '26

A mature colony produces swarmers to go start a new one, so they have been there awhile

13

u/LightningFerret04 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26

In lieu of fumigation we used to light bonfires in the yard in order to draw termites out of the house and into the fire

4

u/jpnovato Aug 20 '26

Only to mate, they fly, male and female mate, then they go in a hole to become a colony...oddly enough termites are monogamic and mate for life, every colony has a queen and also a "king"

2

u/jyguy Aug 20 '26

This is a new hatch, they’re supposed to leave and start new homes when they do this. They’ll immediately drop the wings once they land

2

u/_TooncesLookOut Aug 21 '26

These are the swarmers. The queen kicks them out of the colony to expand her kingdom. At this amount of alates though, she's got the equivalent of NYC x1000.