''Microhodotermes'' is a genus of southern African harvester termites in the

Hodotermitidae The Hodotermitidae (from Greek ὁδός (hodós), travelling; Latin '' termes'', woodworm) are a basal Old World family of termites known as the harvester termites. They are distinguished by the serrated inner edge of their mandibles, and th ...

. As with harvester termites in general, they have serrated inner edges to their mandibles, and all castes have functional compound eyes. Species of this genus are desert specialists of the

Namib The Namib ( ; ) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namibia, and northwest South Africa, extending southward from the Carunjamba Ri ...

Kalahari The Kalahari Desert is a large semiarid sandy savanna in Southern Africa covering including much of Botswana as well as parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal d ...

and

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe Khoemana (also known as !Orakobab or Korana) word is a semidesert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its extent is ...

, where their ranges overlap with ''Hodotermes''. They forage at night and during daylight hours, and their pigmented workers are often observed outside the nest. The workers of '' M. viator'' collect mostly woody material, with ''

Pteronia ''Pteronia'' ("resin daisies") is a genus of evergreen, woody perennial plants assigned to the family Asteraceae with currently 76 described species. Like in almost all Asteraceae, the individual flowers are 5-merous, small and clustered in typic ...

'' and vygie species being favoured. Colonies of ''M. viator'' produce initially small, conical mounds on soil with sufficient clay content. These are speculated to cause the formation of increasingly large heuweltjies. Widespread foraging and burrowing activity of

aardvark Aardvarks ( ; ''Orycteropus afer'') are medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammals native to Africa. Aardvarks are the only living species of the family Orycteropodidae and the order Tubulidentata. They have a long proboscis, similar to a pi ...

s are associated with heuweltjies inhabited by ''M. viator''.

Species

The genus contains three species: * ''

Microhodotermes maroccanus ''Microhodotermes'' is a genus of southern African harvester termites in the Hodotermitidae. As with harvester termites in general, they have serrated inner edges to their mandibles, and all castes have functional compound eyes. Species of this g ...

'' (Sjöstedt, 1926) * ''

Microhodotermes viator ''Microhodotermes viator'', commonly called the southern harvester termite, the Karoo harvesting termite, the wood-eating harvester termite, houtkapper (), and stokkiesdraer (), is a species of harvester termite native to the desert shrubland of ...

'' (Latreille, 1804) * '' Microhodotermes wasmanni'' (Sjöstedt, 1900)

References

Termite genera {{termite-stub