The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 164 Ideas for improving biological materials

After thinking about it, the main gene sequence structure of the leaf claw worm was also analyzed, and Lin Yi also understood a little about the role of its general structure.

Using the mother nest to indirectly absorb the improved organisms from the original mother nest, Lin Yi has not found any problems for the time being. In theory, the mother nest's analysis and storage of gene sequences is essentially a method of reading the base arrangement and copying and pasting, convergent evolution the process of.

As long as you don't copy the underlying logic that determines the innate instincts of living things, and only copy and modify the corresponding structural parts, there will be no problem.

The first is about the ability of leaf-clawed worms to burrow into the ground and move quickly in the soil. This is something Lin Yi is more concerned about. After all, it must not be easy for a creature of such size to drill through the soil at the speed it showed before.

What Lin Yi didn't expect was that the structure they used to move forward in the soil was not the stubby legs underneath them, but the ones on their sides that were shaped like giant holodont swimming leaves, which were also somewhat similar to segmented thorax. The back plate of the insect's side armor!

The ends of these back plates have movable structures, and the muscle shape of the structure became more and more familiar to Lin Yi. Finally, he realized, isn't this the muscle structure of the direct flight muscles?

These back plates can move at specific angles, and because the flight muscles are sufficiently developed and have a very special structure, they can continue to rotate at a specific angle, continuously pushing aside loose soil and pushing the body forward.

As for drilling the soil, it relies on the pair of appendages on both sides of the head that are shaped like giant holodonts. Except for the sharp spikes on the inner edges of these appendages, the outer edges also have a harder structure, somewhat similar to the structure of drill bits of later generations.

When the ends of the two appendages cross and are gathered in front of the body, the leaf-clawed worm's head will tremble left and right at a small angle, continuing to drill through the soil in front. For a cave creature, it moves forward at an astonishing speed.

Lin Yi had reason to suspect that the structure of the leaf-clawed worm's back plate was the source of the wings of the winged breeding worm. As for the wings of the ancient Dinopteryx, they may be the result of further improvements.

In a sense, it does corroborate later speculations about the origin of insect wings - the evolution of special-shaped back plates. However, the difference is that later research speculated that it was arboreal insects that evolved the back plates into gliders, not gliders. Such an outrageous development

Apart from the underground structure, next is the flamethrower structure. But the structure of this flamethrower is not simple either.

When Lin Yi dissected the remains of the leaf-clawed worm before, he discovered that the ignition point and maximum burning temperature of the fuel in its special glands seemed to be lower than those of the flames spouted by the fire-breathing saw ants and the main battle armor, but The victory is to have a large amount and to manage enough.

What this brings about is that its spraying principle and ignition principle are completely different from those of fire-breathing saw ants.

There is no electric ignition structure at the end of their nozzles. Instead, there is a set of propellant and enzyme storage structures connected to the sac.

These propellants are more violent than those currently used by Strange Arthropod and Lin Yi. They can produce gases with higher temperature and greater pressure. While spraying out the flammable liquid in front, they can also directly ignite the ignition point. Lower flammable liquids ignite outside the body close to the outlet!

In other words, the structure of the Leaf Claw Worm is closer to the gunpowder-powered flamethrowers of later generations, rather than those based on the high-pressure water gun principle.

However, such a structure also places high demands on the inner wall exoskeleton material, which means that the shell in the "gun bore" of the injector must have extremely strong heat resistance to prevent the flame ejection structure from erupting. The flames will burn you.

These exoskeleton structures are what Lin Yi is most interested in about leaf claw worms. They do not seem to be as simple as traditional chitin, calcium or keratin, but are mixed with special mineral components. This is somewhat similar to a later mollusk called a scaly-footed snail, which is also the so-called "scaly-horned gastropod snail".

However, the scale-footed snails of later generations were very small, and the so-called armor on their bodies was made of hard and brittle iron sulfide. The thickness was measured in microns. The sum of several layers of shells barely reached one millimeter. Maybe It’s not as thick as the chitinous exoskeletons of some arthropods, let alone able to stop bullets.

However, the leaf claw worm's exoskeleton shell mixed with minerals is actually extremely heat-resistant and defensive. In addition to its ability to withstand flames for a short period of time, the thickness of the exoskeleton is almost the same as that of a giant horseshoe crab, making it difficult for small-caliber semi-armor-piercing rockets capable of penetrating the exoskeleton of a giant horseshoe crab to penetrate.

This was also the most attractive thing about the Leaf Claw Worm that attracted Lin Yi.

After all, the experience of later generations has shown that materials are the key to determining the development of science and technology. From the original stone and wood, to bronze, to steel, to various special alloys, whether it is boiling water or throwing stones, it is inseparable from the advancement of materials science.

When the material is strong enough, a lot of effort can be saved in the design. It is simple and crude, but the force is overwhelming. Only when the material is insufficient, the design needs to be as clever as possible, even at the expense of reliability.

For biological structures, materials are a fatal shortcoming. Even if the structure of arthropods is naturally stronger, it is only so strong that it cannot play any role.

Previously, Lin Yi's countermeasure was to mix all the shell structures that could grow, such as chitin, horn, calcium, etc., into a specific sandwich structure to form a structure similar to later generations of composite armor.

This design was first used on the Dreadnought Soldier. Later, it was also used on a large scale during the production of land-grade products. From the Saw Ant to the main battle armor, the Mortar Terror Spider, the Winged Diver, etc., all of them are more or less There are few applications of such an exoskeleton structure.

But if some other types of minerals can be integrated into the exoskeleton, the performance of the exoskeleton can be further improved.

After all, Lin Yi's ultimate goal is to travel across the universe with a flesh and blood body wrapped in an exoskeleton. It must be difficult to achieve this by relying solely on the structure of the creature itself.

Chitin exoskeleton is an external structure. This allows the metal ion structures that originally exist in the living body to be extracted and aggregated into the exoskeleton through biochemical refining methods to form a more powerful biological composite armor. , it is not completely impossible.

The exoskeleton of the leaf claw worm has a similar structure. Although its strength is far from Lin Yi's ultimate goal, it at least represents the beginning of a new direction and opens a new chapter in biomaterials for him.

(End of this chapter)