The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 138 Improvement of Land Warfare Levels

The process of developing land was unexpectedly smooth.

Along the river, the nesting workers dragged their bloated bodies onto the land. The amphibious land workers pulled in to open up the hose structure extended by the mother and connected it to the mouth of the nesting workers to provide it with the ability to turn into pupae. Brood.

One after another, the terrestrial nests rise from the ground. A large amount of lichen spreads. A giant carpet of dark green and gray is spread on the ground. The tent-like body of the terrestrial nests is dotted above. It looks a bit nomadic from a distance. The feeling of an ethnic gathering place.

And a large number of flying pioneers flap their wings and soar from rivers everywhere, looking for suitable nesting sites, and pupae turn into mother nests.

On this continent, later known as Gondwana, the Hao tribe became the second force that cannot be ignored after the terrestrial arthropod nest group.

During the exploration process, Lin Yi did encounter the opponent's nest power more than once, which proved Lin Yi's guess.

But Lin Yi discovered that the towering mounds on the other side, like most other land plants at this time, were only concentrated along rivers and lakes.

The mounds, and the lichen layer covering them, are like smaller oases, scattered across the vast Gondwana ancient continent, which seems to prove that the other party has not got rid of its dependence on water.

However, Lin Yi is not much better in this regard - today, the mother nest near the water still relies on water pipes to continuously obtain water from the river, and for the mother nest close to the inland, although Lin Yi has tried to use small-grade Collecting dew, or digging water from the soil, is not much better.

Therefore, at present, Lin Yi mainly builds mother nests near the water. At most, he uses the level of excavation work at the grave mounds of the enemy's nest clusters to carry out limited water conservancy engineering operations and dig two holes. A ditch or something.

But no matter what, Lin Yidou destroyed several enemy mound groups, leveling all the mounds that were shaped like tombs and covered with grass. The mother nest below was torn into pieces and absorbed by his own land mother nest. .

During this process, Lin Yi confirmed that the opponent did indeed have a breeding grade - from the appearance point of view, they were not much different from early ancient Dictyoptera insects such as Delicia, but they were larger in size and had surpassed those of later generations. The giant-veined dragonfly of the Carboniferous period.

The other party's genetic sequence gave him a lot of inspiration - these are real wings. Even the aerodynamic layout and various structures are very primitive. They may not even be as good as the wings of Lin Yi's own flying reconnaissance fly, but its The structure, after all, has some merits, and no matter how bad it is, it is not useless as a negative teaching material.

Like the early ancient Dictyoptera, the wings of these arthropods, which Lin Yi simply named as winged breeding insects, did not have complex morphological differentiation. The wing shape was similar to that of later primitive insects such as dragonflies and mayflies, and the forewings and hind wings were equal in length. They are equally wide and have no wing nevus structure, making them very primitive compared to later neopteran insects.

Moreover, it is very similar to ancient Dictyoptera insects such as Delichia - at the front end of its wings, at the first thoracic segment, two piece-like exoskeleton structures extend to both sides. It is unknown whether they are vestigial. The remnants are still like the canard structure of later aircraft, which can create vortices and assist in providing lift.

This also explained one of Lin Yi's previous doubts, which was why the strange arthropod did not panic when encountering a flying reconnaissance drone. Instead, it fired directly and skillfully hit the lead.

If the other party has the level to fly into the sky, it all makes sense. After all, only those who have flown themselves know how to take down things flying in the sky - even though they did not succeed in the end.

After analyzing the gene sequence of the winged breeding insect, Lin Yi, who had experience as a reference, further improved the gene sequence of the flying reconnaissance insect and the flying pioneer insect. Of course, it still cannot take off and land vertically. According to speculation, the opponent's winged breeding insects most likely climbed to the top of the mounds built by their nests, jumped from above, and used the height difference to glide and take off. They also do not have the ability to take off vertically. ability to drop.

In addition, during this process, Lin Yi further improved the terrestrial combat grade of the Saw Ants, the first in the colony that was not named after xx and was fully adapted to land.

Except for some fine-tuning of the body structure details based on previous combat experience, the biggest change is probably to change the formula ratio of the propellant to make it more responsive and provide more powerful thrust to launch projectiles.

After all, the strange arthropods, like later generations of airborne beetles, use a semi-reactive high-temperature gas-liquid mixture as both propellant and ammunition.

If this process reacts too thoroughly, there will be insufficient ammunition that can be ejected. Relying solely on high-temperature and high-pressure gas is like filling the barrel of a gun with blank bullets. It relies entirely on the gun flame to cause damage. The lethality is naturally sorry. .

Lin Yi's requirement is to launch real ammunition, which naturally requires the liquid to react more thoroughly. It is best to completely convert it into high-temperature and high-pressure gas to generate greater power to propel the projectile.

After some troubles, he finally accomplished this goal. Now, the range and lethality of the projectiles fired by the Saw Ants have been further improved.

Now, just facing the Terror Spider, the upgraded Saw Ant can kill it from more than ten meters away. If the shotgun is not suitable for long-distance combat, the distance will be even further.

At the same time, Lin Yi is also trying to develop a grade that is larger and can better integrate this system into the body. However, at this time, because there is no demand, he has no production for the time being and only uses it as a "technical reserve."

In front of the improved Crazy-toothed Saw Ants, the Mesozoon Spider is no longer a threat, but currently, when cleaning enemy nests, those wingless cockroaches have become the most troublesome existence to deal with.

Although their large jaws attack from a short distance, their bite force is not bad. They cannot break through the exoskeleton of saw ants, but they can still pose a certain threat to land workers.

However, the structure of the fangs' mandibles and claw limbs are not suitable for dealing with such an enemy, and the biological shotgun is overpowered and difficult to use at all.

This gradually gave Lin Yi the idea of ​​developing a new, slightly improved sub-level based on the Saw Ant.

The new, sub-class developed from the Saw Ant will have extremely strong range attack capabilities and is designed to efficiently clean up these wingless cockroaches.

Since the upper jaw structure is not suitable for dealing with these little guys no matter how much it is modified, the new transformation will replace the biological shotgun structure on the abdomen of the Saw Ant, and Lin Yi already has some idea of ​​the specific replacement structure.

(End of this chapter)