Termites eat wood, and carpenter ants only excavate it for nesting. You can tell them apart by their body shape: ants have pinched waists, elbowed antennae, and unequal wings, termites have straight waists, beaded antennae, and equal wings.
Let’s be clear about this upfront: finding either carpenter ants or termites in your framing is bad news. But which one you're dealing with determines what you need to do next and how urgently you need to act. It’s useful being able to tell them apart.
If you see the pests themselves, that can help you identify them, especially the winged swarmers that both species send out in spring. Ants look like what you’d think ants would look like. They have pinched, corseted waists and antennae bent at an elbow. They have two pairs of wings and the lengths are different. Termite swarmers are straight and waistless, with antennae like a string of beads and four wings of equal length. The wings are translucent and easily shed, which is why piles of identical discarded wings are so common on windowsills for those dealing with termites.
The behavior is also different. Carpenter ants don’t eat wood. They carve it and excavate smooth, clean, sandpapered galleries for nesting and pushing the debris out. They leave little piles of coarse sawdust (called frass) behind. They prefer wood that has already been softened by moisture, so if you have them, you probably also have a leak. Termites actually do eat wood, digesting the cellulose. Their work is dirty and they pack galleries with mud and soil. If you see mud tubes and pencil-width earthen tunnels climbing to foundations, that’s a telltale sign of termites.
Termites damage structures faster and if you find them, you need professionals as soon as possible. They can cause a lot of damage and very expensive damage at that. Carpenter ants move slower, but “slower structural damage” is still bad and you will want to call a professional sooner rather than later.
If something with wings just swarmed out of your baseboard, Mosquito Squad of Kansas City can help. Mosquito Squad's home and yard coverage addresses ants and other structural pests, helping protect the wood that holds your house up.
