The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 137 "Wedding Flight"

If the weight of one part increases, but the overall weight remains unchanged, then the solution is very simple - reduce the weight of other parts.

The first thing to cut is the digestive system - when in doubt, sacrificing the digestive system first has become Lin Yi's first habit. Anyway, the brand new grade is a one-time use and will not be used.

Lin Yi had taken this issue into consideration when he was making the saw ants before. Therefore, after comprehensive consideration, he did not install a complex digestive system for the saw ants. Instead, he simplified its digestive system as much as possible, and through the core of the nest The supply bag structure directly provides it with liquid nutrients that are easy to digest and absorb.

That is, in this era, there are really no terrestrial animals for these individuals to prey on. Even if the digestive system does not degenerate, there is no need to eat - those vascular plants and moss alone cannot meet the needs of combat or level expansion.

Among the flying creatures of later generations, excluding insects that are small and insignificant, there are very few pure vegetarian species. Even if they are vegetarians, they will feed on berries, seeds, etc. with higher calories, rather than directly eating plant stems and leaves with lower calories. .

However, these days, there are still 300 million years before the appearance of angiosperms, so naturally there is no such thing to eat.

After completely deleting the digestive system, the new-level body has successfully added a lot of space to store fat, and also has a lot of redundant weight that can be used to store fat tissue.

As for other systems, because Lin Yi had already tried to reduce the weight as much as possible when designing the flight reconnaissance aircraft, there is no way to reduce it at this time. He can only further reduce the thickness of the exoskeleton and cover it with a leather-like material, so that Its body wall is thinner.

Therefore, at the final level, the body wall is so thin that it can barely lock in water. Even if the posture is wrong for an emergency landing on land, you may be injured. Don't even think about fighting, the defense is too weak to withstand any blow.

And if such a flying class that Lin Yi named the Flying Pioneer had encountered the anti-aircraft firepower of the strange Arthrothoracic Insect before, its performance would have been even worse than the original flying reconnaissance drone.

But fortunately, the goals of these strange arthrothoracids are obvious, and it seems that because the current land cannot support terrestrial creatures of such a size to survive alone, they and the mesothorax will only live in the mounds of their nests. When you are in a group, you won't suddenly come out of nowhere and spit in your face.

As long as Lin Yi doesn't commit suicide and controls the flying pioneer to hit the opponent's mound, there is no need to worry about the new level being shot down.

Various behaviors of the other party indicate that they will not leave the mound group too far - but this raises another question.

Judging from the land survival adaptability of the other nest group, it is unlikely that they only have this small group of mounds as their territory, but there is no trace of similar groups of mounds found in the nearby areas.

Lin Yi had previously suspected that the enemy might have spread over long distances along the river, but he had already controlled a large number of soldiers to investigate along the river, but found nothing.

That means that the other party is likely to spread from the air!

Although it stands to reason that it will take a long time for the Delicids to appear, but considering that both the large horned spider and the large arthrothoracic insect have appeared in the opponent's nest in advance, it is reasonable for the unknown flight level to appear. .

Then the next step is to find a way to confirm all this, and the method is also very simple - to expand exponentially in a pattern similar to the "marriage flight" of later eusocial insects, quickly occupying large territories to increase the probability of contact with the other party. If the other party is really scattered in various areas on the primitive land of this era, it means that Lin Yi's guess is correct. The other party also expanded and established more groups in the form of "wedding flight" through flying grades.

At this time, the lichens have been transplanted and are being transplanted on a large scale on both sides of the river. Lin Yi also hopes that each expanded mother nest will be planted with this special moss structure.

Among later generations of ants, three genera of leafcutter ants cultivate fungi - the leafcutter ants, the apical leafcutter ants and the ancestral leafcutter ants. The nuptial flight habits of these three genera are also quite special because of the fungi they grow.

The newborn female reproductive ants of these ants will store a small piece of fungal culture under the jaw of the chewing-sucking mouthpart equivalent to the tongue, take it away from the nest where they were born, and after completing the mating/mating ceremony, find a suitable burrow location. So the fungus is planted.

And now, referring to them, Lin Yi also retained a special bag in the degraded digestive system of the new flying pioneer.

The function of this special bag is naturally to store these special lichens and sow them when establishing a new mother nest to supply the mother nest with subsequent production of more grade individuals.

Since vertical takeoff and landing requires higher operational requirements, currently, the flight exploration vehicle, like the flight reconnaissance vehicle, cannot take off and land vertically and can only take off in the water.

If you want to take off and land normally on the spot, you either have to develop a reliable "flight control system" that is programmed into genetic instincts, or you have to learn from the pterosaurs of later generations, play catapult takeoff, and use muscle power to jump directly into the air. .

This method seems easier to implement, but there is no relevant demand now, so Lin Yi gave up. We will wait until a dedicated air combat or air-to-ground level is developed in the future.

In short, the flying pioneer completed its birth in the mother nest in the water, and surfaced on the water immediately after birth, spread its four wings, fluttered into the sky, found a random direction, and flew around.

These flying pioneers fly with no purpose at all. They just try to stay as far away from the current mother nest as possible, find a suitable place to build the mother nest, and start pupating towards the mother nest.

The fat stored in the body of each flying colonizer is enough to pupate into a very small terrestrial brood, as well as several similarly scaled-down terrestrial broods. They will serve as the first pioneers in building a new brood colony, allowing The mother nest accumulates enough nutrients to produce more grade individuals.

However, with only vascular plants and moss lichens as sources of nutrients, the early development of the mother nest is a very slow process. If you want to develop quickly, you need to wait until the lichens obtained from terrestrial arthropod nests are large. Produced on a large scale, or nutrients can be transported directly from the sea.

Therefore, at the same time, at the mouths of rivers, a large number of transporters and transporters, guarded by soldiers, began to move towards the inland rivers, and began to transport a large amount of nutrients accumulated during the Ordovician period to the land, establishing a series of land mothers. Nest, and wait for flying pioneers to send lichen plants to start planting.

Under Lin Yi's control, countless level individuals moved through the busy room, and the large-scale expansion of the land environment began.

(End of this chapter)