AN ASSESSMENT OF THE TAXONOMY OF RETICULITERMES (ISOPTERA, RHINOTERMITIDAE) FROM THE SOUTHEASTERN UNITED-STATES BASED ON CUTICULAR HYDROCARBONS

Collections of Reticulitermes samples from disparate locations in 4 so il provinces in Georgia are identified to species by morphological cha racters of soldiers and alates. These species determinations are corre lated with cuticular hydrocarbon phenotypes. The consensus of various students of the termites of North America is that there are 3 extant s pecies In the southeastern United States: Reticulitermes flavipes (Kol lar), R. virginicus Banks, and R. hageni Banks. We identified if disti nct hydrocarbon phenotypes in Reticulitermes from Georgia. Termites th at key to R. flavipes comprise 3 hydrocarbon phenotypes, R. virginicus is represented by only one hydrocarbon phenotype, and termites that w e diagnose morphologically as R. hageni separate as one hydrocarbon ph enotype. Specimens of unknown species of Reticulitermes comprise 6 sep arate hydrocarbon phenotypes. Two of these were identified as R. hagen i based on the soldier key and as R. virginicus based on the alate key . The remaining 4 hydrocarbon phenotypes were interpreted as R. hageni because the soldier pronotum is less than 0.7mm in width. We have no alate specimens for these 4 hydrocarbon phenotypes. On the basis of cu ticular hydrocarbons we suggest that there are 6 to 8 undescribed taxa of Reticulitermes in Georgia.