In 2024, researchers found inhabited Microhodotermes viator mounds up to 34,000 years old—by far the oldest active termite structures ever dated.

[7] Claude Fuller described the legs as brown or red-brown, with the tarsi and the tips of the tibiae and femora being yellow.

[15] A 1993 study suggests that M. viator thwarts predators by emerging to forage at unpredictable times of day, irrespective of temperature, humidity, and rainfall.

[14] Colonies of Microhodotermes viator form nests, including in regularly-spaced[17] circular mounds of earth called heuweltjies (meaning 'little hills'),[13][15] which when viewed from above resemble large fairy circles.

[14] Studies investigating the role of M. viator in heuweltjie formation have found that the termites form them indirectly as ecosystem engineers by enriching the soil around their nests with organic matter, which has promoted growth of widely separated patches of vegetation that in turn influenced wind erosion to form the mounds.

[14] The superficial sand on heuweltjies inhabited by M. viator is also host to other termites, ants, burrowing bees, mole-rats, and aardvarks, all of whom actively rework the earth.

[17] The structures formed by M. viator are described as having four principal forms: anastomosing tubular tunnels 3 mm–1 cm wide; hundreds[14] of straight tunnels extending with ellipsoidal cross-sections greater than 1 cm in width, which extended several metres radially from the mound's central depression to its periphery and beyond (apparently access ways connecting the hive to storage chambers and foraging sites), oval- or kidney-shaped chambers for the temporary storage of vegetation and cut twigs, generally 5–6 by 3–4 cm with a polished interior surface, and a delicate complex of horizontal shelves made of compacted organic material, which constituted the hive itself.

[13] A number of termitophilous isopods live in the nests and foraging cells of M. viator colonies, including Phylloniscus braunsi, Titana mirabilis, Coatonia phylloniscoides, and Antidorcasia elongata.

The Titaniidae are either tolerated by their hosts, or are protected from attack by their speed and by their flat, horseshoe crab-like body shapes.

[26][25] The rove beetles Termitoletus schultzei,[27] T. neoschultzei, T. niger, T. coatoni, T. sheasbyi, and Hodoxenus sheasbyi,[25] and the clown beetles Monoplius pinguis, M. inflatus, and M. peringueyi, live in Microhodotermes viator nests,[25] as do the primitive insects of the order Zygentoma Dinatelura afra, D. primitiva,[28] Silvestrella termitophila, S. myrmecophila,[29] Rulenatida apprima, Rulenatida primitiva, Natiruleda magnifica, Pseudaletura trichophila, Linadureta versicolor, Eluratinda sheasbyi, Eluratinda coatoni, and Ctenolepisma intercursa.

[32] A major predator of Microhodotermes viator is Pachycondyla hottentota, a specialized ant that catches termites as they return to foraging ports.

A. daedalus apparently feeds only on smaller worker termites, and "detects their suitability as prey items by touch".

[35] M. viator is possibly the most important prey item of the armadillo girdled lizard (Ouroborus cataphractus), which "feeds ferociously" on the large numbers of termites that appear just after the spring rains.