The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 151 Modular Design

Looking back, the relevant inspiration can be traced back to the final battle at the end of the Ordovician period.

In that battle, in addition to "Kraken", there was another giant beast, the giant starfish. Its genetic sequence showed that it was indeed the aggregation of countless small starfish in some way.

Those small starfish proliferate in a way similar to the division and reproduction of single-celled organisms, and the giant starfish is composed of a large number of small starfish that are not completely disconnected when dividing, which can be regarded as a true superorganism in a certain sense.

Lin Yi couldn't understand the operation of this multi-cellular creature really combining itself as a cell with other similar cells to form a huge individual, but it gave him inspiration.

The relevant gene sequence has been completely deciphered and analyzed by Lin Yi, but ordinary creatures are probably unable to learn the extremely difficult operations, especially after Lin Yi's several rounds of magic modifications, the structure of the nest group has become quite complex. It is even more impossible for high-level individuals to regard themselves as cells dividing and reproducing.

However, Lin Yi still got inspiration from them and tried to modify the individual's genetic sequence to achieve some special purposes.

For example, a complete level individual can be split into countless separate, special individuals, limbs, non-important internal organs, etc. that can be replaced as needed.

Regarding the gene sequence in this area, Lin Yi finally completed the analysis through the analysis and improvement of the giant starfish gene sequence. Although the final result has not yet been applied, the theory is mature.

It is not impossible for one living body to parasitize another living body and replace part of its organs and tissues in future generations. For example, the famous fish louse parasitizes on the tongue of fish, eats the original tongue and takes over its function.

In addition, there is a special kind of parasitic mite that lives on the tarsus of the walking legs of a genus of army ants, the Parasitic Ants, and sucks body fluids. It also replaces the functions of the tarsal claws and claw pads at the end of the tarsal segments of the host, and plays a climbing role. The functions of crawling and grasping are sustainable and will not directly affect the life of the host or kill the host.

Perhaps if they continue to evolve, they may change from a simple one-sided parasitism to a special symbiotic relationship. For example, the fish louse that replaces the tongue assists in killing the host when it is hunting, and the food obtained is shared by the two.

At present, what Lin Yi is planning is such a special symbiotic relationship - a combined level composed of a large-scale individual "chassis" that does not have special abilities and a special parasite.

In a sense, the Saw Ant and the projectiles in its body, especially the armor-piercing single-head projectiles, have similar structures. After all, the projectiles themselves are alive.

But Lin Yi is not satisfied with this. He wants to go one step further and replace all non-important structures fixed on the body with a single individual.

The benefits of such a structure are obvious - that is, the modular design concept was considered an advanced concept even in the era of Lin Yi's previous life!

Highly specialized eusocial species are at a different level than ordinary organisms.

Natural evolution does not require warriors with absolute combat power, but species that are more versatile and balanced in all aspects.

But eusocial species are different. Among ants and termites with complex hierarchical differentiation, specialized soldier ants can even degrade their eating ability and stack hardware organs as much as possible to increase their lethality. For the ultimate evolutionary form of true social species such as the nest group, the high-level individuals in it also do not need to be omnipotent, but need to be specialized, extremely highly specialized, and reach the pinnacle in a certain aspect, even if it costs the ability to eat. All have been degraded.

But then again, this extreme specialization also has its shortcomings.

For example, when the nest group develops a targeted level for a certain level of the enemy, but if one day, the opponent completely eliminates this level, this highly targeted level will become useless. land.

This means that these level individuals can only wait for the recycling of the mother nest, and after recycling nutrients, more other level individuals will be produced. This time, a lot of nutrients will inevitably be wasted.

Therefore, if these grade individuals can be modified in a way that consumes very little, and can be transformed into other forms of grade individuals through simple improvements, this problem can be solved very well.

In fact, Lin Yi had conceived a similar idea when he first designed the land combat class. Therefore, in the structural design of the Saw Ant and the main battle armor, many organ structures with the same functions were highly concentrated to facilitate modification.

For example, the fire-breathing saw ant's launch system is completely integrated in the hind abdomen, while most of the other important organs are located at the thoracic and thoracoabdominal segments. To improve it into a fire-breathing saw ant, you only need to Gene fragments related to posterior abdominal structures were modified.

If you want to replace it with the idea of ​​modular design, you only need to integrate the entire posterior abdomen and ventral stalk into a single entity, but there is no complex nervous system. It has the nervous system and circulatory system of the main body connected and healed into one. ability and can be removed and replaced when necessary.

This allows them to be temporarily modified according to battlefield needs into ordinary Saw Ants, Fire-breathing Saw Ants, or other Saw Ant-derived sub-classes with more bold structures.

Of course, the most important thing is the replacement of individual appendages - for arthropods, appendages are the core of all behaviors. Therefore, changing the shape of appendages has a huge impact on grade individuals.

For example, when it is necessary to cross a river and there is no support from pioneering mothers nearby, two paddling legs are temporarily installed on the razor-toothed saw ant so that it can easily cross the river.

Or, based on demand, we could develop jumping legs similar to those of later generations of orthopteran insects to further enhance the mobility of the Saw Ant. The claw limbs on the back can be replaced with other structures to deal with various enemies.

Not just the Saw Ant, the main battle armor can also make different improvements to deal with such situations. A pair of appendages on the back can improve close combat capabilities to deal with different enemies, and even some non-vital internal organs can also be improved, such as the biological flamethrower system.

But in this way, the inner shell structure filled with hydraulic muscles is somewhat troublesome. If each pair of joints and limbs is designed with such a structure, it will inevitably affect the strength of the grade individual.

All these trade-offs, as well as all kinds of problems, left Lin Yi to think about it for the time being. It is not really possible to transform individual appendages into modular appendages, but some necessary improvements still need to be made - for Lin Yi planned to make some more realistic improvements to the main battle armor due to problems that had arisen in previous battles.

(End of this chapter)