The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 136 Planting and Expansion (Anti-Piracy Chapter)

The mound that had been excavated with great difficulty by the chelicerae of the explorer was easily broken open by the violent excavation of the new excavator's chelicerae, revealing the holes and channel-like structures underneath.

These passages are clearly designed for wingless cockroaches to travel through.

At the bottom of the mound-like structure, underground, there are huge hole spaces and openings, which are obviously designed for the spider worms and strange arthropods, so that they can shrink in the humid underground environment and avoid nutrients and moisture. of loss.

Further down, there was the structure Lin Yi was looking for - an ellipsoid-shaped object full of holes, which was obviously the mother's nest.

It still maintains the form of a mother nest in the water, and has not evolved into a specialized land mother nest like Lin Yi's nest group.

This also makes it difficult for the other party to keep the water in the mother's nest from being lost. Therefore, they came up with the strategy of wrapping the entire mother nest with mounds of soil to prevent the loss of water.

By the way, at this time, Lin Yi has completely solved the problem of water loss in the mother's nest - the holes on the surface of the mother's nest that produce products and absorb food resources have been designed by Lin Yi to open and close independently to further reduce water loss. .

Of course, there will still be a small amount of water that inevitably escapes from various gaps or is lost during the production of individual grades. This means that water pipe structures also need to continue to exist to continue drawing water from the river.

However, the emergence of lichens seems to have solved this problem to a certain extent. It can absorb water from the soil and store it in the plant. Workers can tear it off and stuff it into the holes on the surface of the mother nest, and then it can be limited. of added moisture.

Thinking that the enemy's nest had been completely dug out of the grave, ah, no, by the diggers, it appeared in front of Lin Yi without any exposure.

The crazy-toothed saw ants swarmed forward, waving their claws and opening their upper jaws. They were so ferocious that they easily tore the enemy's huge nest into pieces.

Immediately, the nearby exploration and land workers swarmed forward and continued to tear the fragments into smaller pieces, preparing to stuff them into the holes on the surface of the mother nest for absorption.

However, the shape of the opponent's mother nest also made Lin Yi a little curious - why did this nest group, which had no aquatic grade at all and only consisted of terrestrial creatures, maintain the form of a water mother nest without any changes? .

This may be related to the origin of the mother's nest - perhaps all of this is hidden in the genetic sequence of the mother's nest, waiting for his further exploration.

It was a familiar analysis process, but the location was changed from the ocean to the land, and Lin Yi was still familiar with it.

Even so, the complexity of the brood's genetic sequence makes it difficult to parse it, extracting the different parts from those common parts and further analyzing them.

During this period, Lin Yi continued to prepare to establish a land nest along the river bank, and began to think about the next development direction.

Now, a new question appeared in front of Lin Yi - the other party, is there only this one group of mounds, and are there other nest groups on the land now?

Based on the results of several contacts, the Anomalocaris nest seemed to be a special case. The other nests were all extremely aggressive towards Lin Yi.

Regardless of the reason, Lin Yi and other nest groups are destined to be unable to coexist peacefully. Instead of passively waiting for the other party to come to your door, it is better to actively search for other nests and then eliminate them.

However, it is very inefficient to complete exploration based on the mobility of land-based vehicles and exploration vehicles alone. The degraded digestive system of the Saw Ants does not support long-distance exploration and reconnaissance. Therefore, looking for a way, he decided to use a previously produced level as a prototype - the flying reconnaissance drone.

Today, the improved flight reconnaissance aircraft, whether in terms of flight speed, flight altitude or range, far exceeds the original "prototype" and is fully capable of this task.

Moreover, Lin Yi also had other ideas that he wanted to realize through flying reconnaissance.

For most ant and termite species in later generations, the mode of expanding new colonies is called "nuptial flight". As the name suggests, male and female winged breeding ants fly into the sky and complete the mating ceremony in the air.

Later, in ants, the male breeding ant dies and the female breeding ant lands, breaks off her membrane wings, and burrows in the soil, where she begins to consume nutrients in her body to lay the first eggs that will develop into worker ants.

In termites, male and female reproductive ants complete this process together, but the specific processes are not much different.

In some species with larger colonies, tens of thousands of breeding ants will fly into the sky at the same time during the annual breeding season. Even if the survival rate of new queen ants is less than one percent, the huge base can ensure that there are enough Build new communities in numbers.

This method of diffusion can spread the blood of the community as far as possible, which is extremely beneficial to the spread of genes. The success of eusocial insects is also related to this method of reproduction.

These eusocial insects of later generations are very similar to the current hive mind consciousness hive, which means that this method can also be used by Lin Yi today.

The difference is that the expansion of the nest group does not sow the seeds of genes far away, but allows the tentacles of the nest group itself to spread further and bloom everywhere, further increasing the probability of discovering other nest groups.

It would be even simpler if it were not other nest colonies, but just other sub-groups of the current terrestrial arthropod nest colony. With their architectural habits, these towering termite mound-like mounds are clearly visible from a long distance away.

Thinking about this, Lin Yi immediately started editing the gene sequence of the flying reconnaissance machine.

Currently, the flight reconnaissance aircraft's range, speed and flight altitude can meet Lin Yi's needs, and no further editing or modification is required.

But now, apart from these indicators, in order to achieve the envisioned goal of establishing a sub-base, the new grade still has a very important indicator that needs to be achieved, and that is the reserve of nutrients in the body.

Envisioned, new. The level based on the flying reconnaissance worm will have a large amount of fat tissue in its body, which is enough to consume nutrients for its own pupation into a terrestrial mother nest. After finding a suitable location, it will immediately make an emergency landing and begin to pupate into the terrestrial mother nest.

But this will inevitably lead to an increase in weight and a change in the center of gravity of the new grade, which is detrimental to flight.

Therefore, how to balance the amount and weight of fat and ensure that the nutrients stored in the body of the new grade are enough to pupate into a new mother's nest after landing, without affecting the normal flight of the new grade during the expansion process, is what Lin Yi needs to consider now. the most important question.

(End of this chapter)