Talk:Autothysis

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Citations desired

Some citations would be nice - it sounds a little hoax-like. Why do the termites blow themselves up in the first place? Andjam 04:05, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A defence mechanism? It gets very few non-Wikipedia Google hits, but some Google Group hits seem to confirm it. This is one of those things where we need some off-net sources. violet/riga (t) 09:34, 26 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

A New interpretation of the Defense Glands of Neotropical Ruptitermes (Isoptera, Termitidae, Apicotermitinae) By A. M. Costa-Leonardo ... from the abstract: The termites of the genus Ruptitermes are known for the suicidal behavior of the workers which liberate a sticky defensive secretion by body bursting ... KEY WORDS: defensive behavior, autothysis, termites, salivary glands, dehiscent glands found at http://www.csuchico.edu/biol/Sociobiology/volume/sociobiologyv44n22004.html --Graatz 19:42, 14 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Definitely not a hoax. There was an article ~20 years ago in Scientific American about the astounding chemical warfare tactics of many genera of termites; it was written by a scientist looking into the chemical aspects (and getting taught a few things by the termites). Exploding is just the half of it. There were the "slash-and-daub" soldiers, who with one arm would rent the enemy's body, then use the other arm to quickly fill the wound with a corrosive substance. In some species, the self-explosion is caused by mixing two chemicals, maintained separately in the body until moments of extremis, mixing which causes an explosion -- much like the old Soda-Acid fire extinguisher which worked on this principle, when sulphuric acid came into contact with soda water. The explosion coats the enemies with sticky or downright damaging materials from the soldier's innards. In other cases the soldier would expel the corrosive substance towards the enemy exactly like a fire extinguisher. --MikeQ 18:18, 17 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Latin/greek

I'm guessing it means killing oneself (in reverseorder...if it makes any sense), but can someone add the latin or greek meaning

Auto is clearly self, thysis could be a portmanteau of thantos, death, and lysis, rupture, but I really have no clue. I looked around and didn't find anything.-Craig Pemberton 04:55, 29 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

It may refer to a priest immolating himself, according to Jung: http://books.google.com/books?id=8IHlLnFQg1gC&pg=PA76&lpg=PA76&source=bl&ots=PF35i2PFGH&sig=0tVrvYZ0N0rv8Vk2UY1Y_THudnQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=DHBoVMnFLYegNvD0gfAF&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=define%20%22thysis%22&f=false Tagus 09:56, 16 November 2014 (UTC)

Sophistication of wording needs improvement

The section on Ants reads very repetitive: Autothysis works better against arthropods than vertebrates.

Another example. The following sentence sounds like circular reasoning to me: "This self-sacrifice is most useful against arthropods because the sticky adhesives in the products work best against the bodies of other arthropods."

Paraphrasing: "Self-sacrifice is most useful against arthropods because it works best against arthropods."

Maybe I'm just reading it wrong... ? Helghast (talk) 21:58, 29 April 2018 (UTC)[reply]