The cryptic habits of subterranean termites restricts detailed analysis of their foraging patterns in situ, but the process is evidently dominated by tunnel constructions connecting the nest with woody resources discovered within the territory of each colony. In this study, tunnel formation and orientation were studied experimentally in the termite Reticulitermes grassei (Clément), using 2D laboratory foraging arenas containing fine sand as the substratum. The building of exploratory tunnels and the geometry of the resulting network is described for the first time in this species. Fractal analysis showed that tunnel geometry had a fractal dimension, regardless of the total amount (length) tunnelled or whether foragers encountered or did not encounter the food source available. The bulk density of the sand in the arenas was found to affect the distances tunneled, with higher density reducing construction, but did not affect tunnel geometry. Tunnels were not discernibly orientated with respect to the positioning of the food source, even in a situation where termites had failed to find the food source at a distance of less than 50 mm, suggesting that volatiles from wood are not, in the studied conditions, dominant infochemical signals.

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