Workers and soldiers gather vegetable detritus which they bring back to the colony, chewing the material to a pulp to make a suitable substrate on which to grow the fungus.

[2] Odontotermes formosanus has a widespread distribution in southeastern Asia, its range including Japan, Taiwan, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar and India.

[4] Like other members of the subfamily Macrotermitinae, Odontotermes formosanus have a symbiosis with a fungus in the genus Termitomyces which they cultivate in the nest.

Younger workers remain in the nest where they chew up plant material brought in by the foragers, which becomes mixed with asexual spores of the fungus and bacteria in their gut.

The searching worker repeatedly touches the tip of its abdomen to the substrate to lay down a pheromone trail to guide other termites.