Cuticular Hydrocarbons as Chemotaxonomic Characters for Nasutitermes corniger (Motschulsky) and N. ephratae (Holmgren) (Isoptera: Termitidae)

Authors

• Ralph W. Howard, Southern Forest Experiment Station, USDA, Forest Service, Gulfport, Mississippi
• Barbara L. Thorne, Southern Forest Experiment Station, USDA, Forest Service, Gulfport, Mississippi
• Sally C. Levings, Southern Forest Experiment Station, USDA, Forest Service, Gulfport, Mississippi
• C. A. Mcdaniel, Southern Forest Experiment Station, USDA, Forest Service, Gulfport, Mississippi

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

1988

Comments

Published in Ann. Entomol. Soc. Am. 81(3): 395-399 (1988).

Abstract

Forty-four cuticular hydrocarbon components from workers of the termites Nasutitermes corniger (Motschulsky) and N. ephratae (Holmgren) from three localities in Panama were characterized by capillary gas chromatography-electron impact mass spectrometry. Both species contain qualitatively identical homologous series of n-alkanes; 2-, 3-, 11-,13-,14-, and 15-methylalkanes; 11,15-, 12,16-, and 13,17-dimethylalkanes; and 11,15,19- and 13, 17,21-trimethylalkanes. Both species also contain a single alkene, 9-hentriacontene. The two species, however, are readily distinguished chemically by differences among the relative abundances of 11 of their major hydrocarbon components.