Drywood Termite

Drywood termites have abandoned the soil connection that defines most termite species. While subterranean termites must return to ground moisture, drywood termites live entirely within the wood they consume—no tunnels to earth, no water foraging, no connection to anything beyond their wooden world. They extract all moisture from wood and manage waste by kicking distinctive hexagonal fecal pellets out of small holes. These pellets, often the first sign of infestation, represent an elegant closed-loop system: consume wood, extract water and nutrients, expel dry waste.

This isolation enables remarkable dispersal. A single mated pair can fly into a structure, bore into furniture, and establish a colony that never contacts the outside world. The strategy makes drywood termites formidable furniture pests—they travel hidden in infested wood, emerge anywhere wood exists, and require no environmental connections to establish. A drywood colony in imported furniture can infest a building thousands of kilometers from the species' native range.

Colonies remain small by termite standards—typically under 3,000 individuals. But this isn't a weakness. Small colonies match resource-limited environments (a single piece of furniture can't support millions). The strategy trades scale for portability, abundance for ubiquity. The business parallel illuminates self-contained organizational units. Drywood termites are the biological equivalent of fully autonomous subsidiaries—complete operational capability without headquarters support. Companies that create genuinely self-sufficient units gain dispersal advantages similar to drywood termites: ability to operate anywhere, no vulnerability to headquarters disruption, independent adaptation to local conditions. The tradeoff is reduced scale and coordination benefits. Self-contained units sacrifice shared services for independence.