Pansacauda arborfretus

Pansacauda arborfretus is one of 20 eusocial pseudoathropods which live on Silvanus. 

Every species build their nests on an different altitude. 

P. arborfretus is live between 200 and 300 meters over the ocean surface.

There are 4 castes (in other species are even more), the workers, the soldiers, the leaves and the king. In addition there is the sub-caste, called queens.

Workers: Are the smallest members of the colony. They do the most work, build the nest, care for the young and bring raw food home (fruits, small invertebrates etc.).

Soldiers: These bigger animals are characterized by their big Heolldobler's gland (named after the famous myrmecologist Bert Hölldobler), these glands produce a stiky, stinky secretion which they use to defend the colony, especially the leaves.

Leaves: This caste is the real food source of the colony. All members of the superorganism have flattened tails which contain symbiotic photosynthetic microbes. But the leaves have a much bigger, broader tail with an higher microbe density. For this board and lodging service the microbes produce a sweet liquid which the leaves share with their colony members. To get enough light the nests are build with the same logic like trees grow. 

Species which live higher have less complex nests because of the higher solar radiation. 

Kings and queens: The king isn't the ruler of the colony, it's more its prisoner. Only during the first year of the new colony he is free to go where he want and can help the first workers and queens to build the nest. The young kings, or princes, leave the mother colony with an age of two years and search for other colonies of their kind. Here they beginn to flirt with the workers. All workers are potential queens but their mothers produce a proverfull pheromone (produced in a gland behind the eyes) which suppress the sex drive of their daughters. With pseudo-copulations the male activate the females genitals again. Together with the newborn queens (3-6) the male found a new colony. During this time the queen grow up to 20% bigger to defend the young colony better and to be able to lay more eggs.