Several mounds in western Kenya were excavated to examine their internal structure. The mounds and the soil beneath them were found to be densely packed with discrete chambers containing fungus combs. A simple system of passages opening to the exterior provided both access and ventilation to the interior of the nest. One nest was killed by fumigation and its contents extracted. The nest population was estimated to be 0.28 million adult steriles with a biomass of 462 g dry weight, and the total dry weight of fungus comb was 2.8 kg. These estimates are very low in comparison to nests of Macrotermes spp. that build mounds of comparable size. The ratio of fungus comb weight to adult biomass (6:1) is higher than that in Macrotermes spp., perhaps because the comb is constructed in a different way.
