| Porthole 26 May 22

YOU may think you’ve been on a few trips across the oceans in your lifetime, but there’s no chance you’ve voyaged more than this particular species of insect.

A new study has determined the drywood termite has successfully crossed the ocean at least 40 times in the last 50 million years.

By genetically tracking their family tree, researchers found their earliest common ancestor lived 84 million years ago, meaning some of the early splits in the tree might have happened before the continents finished breaking up.

However, most of the 40 or so splits happened less than 50 million years ago, which suggests these termites were travelling across the oceans too.