‘A matter of when, not if’: Hungry termites are on the march in Australia

These insects seem to eat pretty much anything, and as the climate warms their numbers are only increasing – Australia should be a warning to the rest of the world, writes Frances Vinall

In less than three years, giant northern termites have destroyed the Galaxy Auditorium restaurant (Washington Post photo by Frances Vinall)

In a forgotten restaurant behind a gas station in Australia’s red centre, only metal and plastic parts remain unscathed. Chris Cook grabs at a timber door frame, which crumples like paper in his hand.

“This has all just collapsed,” says Cook, a manager at Territory Pest Control in Australia’s Northern Territory. He eyes boards hanging in ragged pieces from the ceiling. Since he last visited the abandoned building three years ago, thousands of uninvited guests have been busy.

The destruction at Galaxy Auditorium restaurant at Wycliffe Well – a tiny highway stop which calls itself the “UFO capital of Australia” – is the destruction that could lie ahead for many places on the continent unless mastotermes darwiniensis can be stopped. These termites are the last survivors of an ancestral species that shared space with dinosaurs 150 million years ago. They’re voracious and relentless. And because of climate change, they, like their fellow kin, are expanding their range.