The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 174 The dying nest

Slowly draw a shape similar to a mother's nest, but there are no holes in the whole body, only a gap at the top. There is no doubt that it refers to the original mother nest!

The appearance of this structure immediately made Lin Yi feel bad - beside the Dikla crater, the leader of the ancient jaw group was controlled like a puppet. Coupled with the previous speculations, various results showed that this primitive mother nest Not a good thing.

The next picture made Lin Yi feel even more ominous - in the picture, a large number of anomalocaridids surrounded the original mother's nest, and were holding the body of a full-toothed Hed shrimp, preparing to put it into the original mother's nest. The hole at the top.

Immediately, the pattern representing the corpse of the full-toothed Heder shrimp on the top of the original mother nest was wiped away, and was replaced by a spray of liquid containing a large number of special microorganisms, as well as the anomalocaridids that absorbed the liquid.

Then, several lines with arrows extended from the images of the anomalocaridids sucking special liquids, pointing to a pattern representing the mother's nest, which seemed to express that these individuals were subsequently absorbed by the special liquid in the mother's nest and its body.

In the next picture, a brand new individual is produced from the mother's nest - the head shell is shaped like an upper jaw, and the two appendages are shaped like a lower jaw, with only two pairs of extremely developed swimming lobes. From a morphological point of view, It's definitely a Hedera prawn.

But in terms of proportion, this Pseudognathus Hederi shrimp is much larger than the ones Lin Yi encountered - perhaps this is their complete form.

In the subsequent scenes, small anomalocaridids resembling the Schendhans shrimp were produced, swimming together with the Hed's shrimp, as if the swordfish-shaped Hed's shrimp were paired with ordinary Anomalocaris.

The next few scenes are related to daily hunting and production, which seem to express the stable development of the Anomalocaris nest group after obtaining the genetic sequence provided by the original mother nest.

But the next picture is the key point - the other party drew several shapes of anomalocaridids, and after drawing each one, he used a line to connect it with other anomalocaridids patterns, just like Lin Yi showed before picture.

Subsequently, more anomalocaridids patterns were drawn, some representing individuals of these anomalocaridids similar to Schindelhans elegans, and also those of Pseudomonas pseudognathus, but after these patterns were drawn, there were no connecting lines!

And then, the previously drawn patterns with connecting lines were erased. In the end, only two Anomalocaris individuals with connecting lines and countless individuals without connecting lines remained!

After finishing the last stroke of the painting, the body of the "Schendhans Shrimp" flexibly flipped upwards and floated above the painting, but the pair of compound eyes on the eye stalks had lost their previous luster.

The gradually dimming luster seemed to tell the desolation of the end of the road - if Lin Yi understood correctly, what the other party expressed seemed to be brand new individuals born from the other party's nest, and they no longer had special synaptic structures.

For a hive that uses the hive mind consciousness network connecting individuals as its main carrier, fewer individuals can access the hive mind consciousness network. For such a true social super-individual creature, it seems that it can support There are fewer and fewer living cells for biological functions.

At present, the situation of the Anomalocaris nest must have become quite serious, so they have no choice but to use these individuals that cannot be directly controlled to complete basic survival through indirect command.

In other words, the Anomalocaris nest is heading towards death in the sense of a super-organism. Moreover, this does not happen naturally, but is the result of external influence!

The existence form of the nest group, the theory is immortal. The situation of the Anomalocaris nest must be caused by some external force. There is only one possible external force - the original mother nest! The original mother nest has the same gene editing capabilities as the mother nest, but the editing ability is even better. The mother nest can give organisms a special synaptic structure, so it is not impossible for the original mother nest to degrade related gene sequences!

Gene editing between the mother nest and the original mother nest relies on a special virus-like microorganism. In the original mother nest, they may be real viruses, and they are viruses with some form of intelligence!

Combining various abnormal phenomena, Lin Yi was certain that the current situation of the Anomalocaris nest must be related to the original mother nest. His previous guess was not groundless. This primitive nest was really a well-disguised trap.

Lin Yi couldn't help but feel lucky that he noticed something was wrong with the original mother nest and did not rashly conduct experiments with grade individuals from his own nest group.

At this moment, Lin Yi once again thought of the leader Gu Jaw in the Dikla Crater. A terrifying guess emerged from his mind - were those leading Ancient Jaws once a nest group?

Perhaps, they were also influenced by the original mother nest, and the gene sequence in the brain that determines the development of special synapse structures has degenerated to a certain extent, degenerating into something between a nest group and ordinary animals, similar to a eusocial creature. The form of existence is controlled by the original mother nest.

In this way, combined with the reactions of the Orthosphaera nest group and the terrestrial arthropod nest group, as well as the encounter of the Anomalocaridid ​​nest group and the suspected leader archaeognathus group of nest group degradation, the purpose of the original mother nest becomes obvious.

Perhaps, they can subtly influence the nest group by modifying the underlying genetic sequence logic, making the nest group their puppet. And if it fails, they will resort to a last resort - using a special genetic virus to infect the mother nest of the nest group, so that the nest group cannot give birth to normal individuals with special synapse structures.

Perhaps the original mother nest is a super-individual virus in a sense, parasitizing and controlling the nest group, and using their hierarchical individuals for its own use.

But there are still some things that cannot be explained - this kind of survival strategy is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it is not entirely pleasing to the eye. It also relies on other nest groups for its existence, and it does not seem to be completely in line with the evolutionary laws of organisms.

Moreover, if the helical nests and terrestrial arthropod nests are really controlled by the original mother nest, then why do they show amazing aggression and at the same time do not help the original mother nest as a parasite to spread viroids? Life form?

Unless the underlying logic of the genetic sequence of the original mother nest has been modified by something, they have other purposes for controlling the nest group.

Thinking of this, on land, the compound eyes of a wild-toothed saw ant looked up to the nine heavens, looking towards the unknown deep sky.

It has been determined that the original mother nest is closely related to the Middle Ordovician meteor event. Once this possibility is determined, does it mean that the existence of the nest group, the appearance of the original mother nest, and even Lin Yi's own "travel" are all A carefully planned conspiracy?

Everything made Lin Yi feel shuddering!

(End of this chapter)