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

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

. 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 ( ; pt, Namibe) is a coastal desert in Southern Africa. The name is of Khoekhoegowab origin and means "vast place". According to the broadest definition, the Namib stretches for more than along the Atlantic coasts of Angola, Namib ...

Kalahari The Kalahari Desert is a large semi-arid sandy savanna in Southern Africa extending for , covering much of Botswana, and parts of Namibia and South Africa. It is not to be confused with the Angolan, Namibian, and South African Namib coastal de ...

and

Karoo The Karoo ( ; from the Afrikaans borrowing of the South Khoekhoe !Orakobab or Khoemana word ''ǃ’Aukarob'' "Hardveld") is a semi-desert natural region of South Africa. No exact definition of what constitutes the Karoo is available, so its ext ...

, 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 typi ...

'' 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

heuweltjie Heuweltjies are a class of soil surface feature that occurs widely in the south-western Cape of South Africa. They may be recognised as large mounds above or near the surface of the landscape. Like other similar-looking phenomena, such as Mima mo ...

s. Widespread foraging and burrowing activity of

aardvark The aardvark ( ; ''Orycteropus afer'') is a medium-sized, burrowing, nocturnal mammal native to Africa. It is the only living species of the order Tubulidentata, although other prehistoric species and genera of Tubulidentata are known. Unlike ...

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

Species

The genus contains three species: * '' M. maroccanus'' (Sjöstedt) * '' M. viator'' (Latreille) * '' M. wasmanni'' (Sjöstedt)

References

Termite genera {{termite-stub