Abstract
Termites are eusocial insects with cryptic behavior. One behavior observed in subterranean termites is age polyethism, in which individuals of different ages perform tasks according to their physiological changes. Termites are hemimetabolous, thus undergoing physiological changes that repeat with each molting cycle. This study aims to investigate whether Coptotermes gestroi (Wasmann) exhibits significant intermolt polyethism, here defined as changes in behavioral patterns during the intermolt period. To answer this question, termites were collected from 2-year-old colonies for observation. Recently molted termites were marked and observed every other day for 45 days after molting. The instances of allogrooming, wood-feeding, trophallaxis, and nest maintenance were recorded, and these observations were fitted with piecewise polynomial regressions. The results showed changes in the frequency of three out of the four behaviors over time, with trophallaxis being the only exception. Our results demonstrate that C. gestroi exhibited polyethism in the period between molts, implying that termite behavioral patterns are periodically altered, where the effective temporal polyethism of workers results from the combination of age polyethism and intermolt polyethism.