Abstract: Termites occurred hundreds of millions of years ago and were widely distributed, causing huge economic losses in China and all over the world. It is difficult to control termites because most of them live in hidden habitats. Additionally, long-term chemical control has caused many social and environmental problems. Antennae are important sensory appendages of insects, and are especially crucial for the eusocial, non-reproductive termites whose monocular and compound eyes are mostly degenerated or disappeared to recognize various intra-/inter-specific communication signals and the environmental information. In this article, we reviewed series of research progresses on the sensory structures and electrophysiology of termite antennae and the roles in its social behaviors, to provide a reference for the research and development of environmentally friendly termite control strategies. The anatomical study on antennal sensilla in termites has gone through several stages, including the external apparent morphology of sensilla, internal ultrastructure and dendritic innervations of sensilla, the distribution and abundance of sensilla produced by the morphological field effects, and inferring the differences among various castes through the morphological field performance of antennae. The comparative morphological studies suggest that the olfactory morphology of antennal sensilla is related to the division of reproduction. Compared with workers and soldiers, female and male termites have longer antennae and more sensory organs. The quantitative composition of sensory organs is different between reproductive and non-reproductive termites, but shows little difference between female and male termites or between workers and soldiers. The electroantennographic test in termites involves many aspects, such as termite repellents, attractants, pheromones, fungi, humidity change, etc., which expands people’s understanding of the antennal perception of termites. Gas chromatography-electroantennographic detection (GC-EAD) combined with gas chromatography-mass spectrometer (GC-MS) was used to detect and identify a series of chemical components that could elicit antennal reactions of termites, including cuticular hydrocarbons, trail pheromones, sex pheromones, alarm pheromones, queen pheromones, plant volatiles, etc. In addition, single sensillum recording also confirmed the presence of olfactory receptors on the antennae of termites. In view of more understanding of antennal perception of termites by electrophysiological techniques, behavioral and molecular biological researches have further confirmed the various roles of termite antennae, such as the roles of antennae in foraging, feeding, grooming, recognition between nestmates and inter-colonial individuals, royal recognition, corpses discrimination, detection of variations in environmental humidity, etc., and further studies on the mechanism of action were carried out.

Key words: Termite, antennae, sensilla, ultrastructure, dendritic innervations, electrophysiological response, social behaviors