SFGATE - Described by researchers as one of the most serious wood-destroying pests in the world, subterranean termites cause an estimated $32 billion in damage globally per year, and California is a battleground where both native and non-native species flourish. Now, unfortunately for squeamish homeowners, researchers at UC Riverside said there may be even more termite species than we initially realized.
In a July 2025 paper, UC Riverside entomologist Chow-Yang Lee and his team identified a new species of termite in California, Reticulitermes rusti, which has been detected from Santa Barbara all the way to San Diego, Lee told SFGATE on Wednesday. He estimates that there are three other new species that have yet to be identified — and two of them, he said, are located in Northern California and near the Sierra Nevada.