The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 26 The Familia of the Old Ones
  Facing the sickle limb of the second-generation soldier, the larvae of Orthospermum closed its tentacles and wrists, and a strong stream of water spurted out from the funnel, and its body retreated as quickly as an arrow.

Bing Hao immediately swung his tail and chased forward. The hornworm larvae retreat further and further until they exit the coral reef range. Bing Hao followed closely, waving his sickle limbs, but stopped abruptly at the edge of the coral reef.

The end of the broad and flat tail and the paddle-like paddling foot swung forward violently, pushing Binghao's one-meter-long body backwards.

And the next second, ten tentacles shrouded from the gap in the coral reef, heading straight towards Bing Ge's position just now.

Seeing that it was empty, the thick and long tentacles swung, water sprayed out from the funnel, and the huge body slowly retreated - it was an adult helical stone.

After controlling the soldiers to retreat between the coral reefs, Lin Yi couldn't help but sigh that he was still careless.

The larval Orthospermum uses itself as bait, trying to lure the soldier to the range where the adult's tentacles can attack, and then the adult takes action, almost causing him to lose another soldier.

This made him more firm in his previous guess that the Orthogonal Stone must be the same as his own hive group, a hive mind consciousness cluster with the Horned Stone species as the main body.

Otherwise, with the intelligence level of creatures in this era, it would be impossible to complete such a complex coordination.

What's more, using one's body as bait to assist one's own species, a behavior that goes against genetic instinct, only occurs in highly specialized communities of social species.

Seeing that the plan failed, the huge eyeballs of the adult Helical Stone wandering around the periphery turned, as if thinking about something.

Immediately, the two snails spurted streams of water from the funnel, pushing their huge bodies towards the body of the dead snail.

The tentacles of one adult helical stone wrapped around the shell of its dead counterpart, while the other hooked its tentacles and horny beak on the soft body of the corpse and began to tear it apart.

The larvae moved forward and gnawed the flesh and blood from the wounds torn by the adults, without any concern that they came from the same kind.

The soft tissue of the Orthospermum corpse was quickly devoured by countless species of the same kind, both large and small. Only the shell that had been filled with seawater in the air chamber fell on the sea bed, transforming into a pile of corpses that looked like white bones. part.

……

The soldiers were controlled to stuff the tentacles of the helical stone into the holes on the surface of the mother's nest, and the mother's nest absorbed and extracted the genetic sequence. The genetic sequence of the helical stone confirmed Lin Yi's guess.

The gene sequence of the Orthogonal Stone extracted from the mother's nest is impressively embedded with those special gene fragments of the original Limulus Template, which are connected to the brain, nerves and other fragments.

The part determined by these fragments is the key to the individual's nervous system being able to connect to the hive mind consciousness cluster. The orthohelical stone with these fragments in the genetic sequence must also be an individual under the hive mind consciousness cluster.

Straight Spiral Stone has shown strong aggression towards the individuals he controls, which means that the other party is an enemy rather than a friend.

For Lin Yi, this was an unprecedented enemy that existed in the same form as him. According to the information currently available, from the perspective of a eusocial "super-individual", the community pattern of Orthospermum is similar to that of later termites. There is no complex hierarchical differentiation of different sizes, but allows individuals at different growth stages to come together. Responsible for different tasks, creating an effect similar to grade differentiation. Simply put, the phenomenon of "child labor" is widespread.

Lin Yiyang's nest group is closer to the ants of later generations. Once an individual completes the pupation process, it becomes an adult with a fixed size. However, there is quite complex grade differentiation among the same species, and the body size and morphological differences between different grades are comparable to two species.

Both modes have their own advantages and disadvantages. In order to ensure that there are individuals of various sizes in the colony at the same time, termite-mode colonies tend to develop slowly, making it difficult to quickly recruit large individuals. However, each small individual has the potential to grow into the largest Individuals have a deeper foundation accumulated over a long period of time.

The ant mode colony tends to develop faster, can quickly attack troops, and is more advantageous in a war of attrition in a short period of time. However, once an individual pupates, its body shape will be permanently fixed. If we want to keep up with the development of the termite model in the long term, we will only be able to produce more large individuals, which requires the investment of more food resources.

But now, Lin Yi doesn't know how long the nest group composed of straight spiral stones has been developing.

According to the worst possibility, they have been developing since the Middle Ordovician meteor event, which may have been tens or even millions of years ago.

But fortunately, from the fact that Lin Yi only encountered the Straight Spiral Stone after a period of expansion, he can be sure that the other party either did not develop for such a long time, or was limited by a way of thinking that was not free from the influence of instinct and did not develop too much. Large scale.

This means that the opponent's nest is not an invincible behemoth.

What Lin Yi needs is just a period of stable development in order to convert the nutrients stored in the mother nests obtained by the clusters of sea ringworms extending from the mother nests in various places into more energy and direct snails. A second-generation soldier with a corner stone to contend with.

……

After a while, the rear.

Figures more than two meters long are swinging with five pairs of paddle-like paddling feet. Although they are not as long as the body of the Helical Stone, their wider bodies split the water waves under the joint support of the air chamber and the water jet propulsion system. It swims with three pairs of feeding appendages on both sides of its head.

Located in the center, the one with a body length of nearly three meters and a broad trunk is the pioneer female, while the slightly smaller and more slender one with more developed feeding appendages on both sides of the head is surrounded by the filtering female.

Countless second-generation soldiers stood guard with their large blades and thorny sickle limbs, and the black mass was no less spectacular than the fish schools of later generations. Pairs of flat paddle-like paddling feet swayed like wings, casting swaying shadows on the seabed.

Before the threat of Orthogonal Stone appeared, Lin Yi mainly controlled the production of individuals from the brood. The number of soldiers depended on the range of fertile waters around the brood. It was kept at a number just enough to control the territory. It would be too much. Except for the occasional production of pioneer grasshoppers, most of the nutrients are stored for emergencies.

These mothers and soldiers were all the individuals who controlled the mother nest to convert the stored nutrients into output during this period of time. At this time, they gather at the mother nest closest to the territory of the Orthogonal Stone Nest Group.
  At this time, Lin Yi's thoughts moved, and the army slowly set off as the water jets ejected from the corner stone's water jet propulsion system on both sides of the mother's body. They lined up like a fleet in the sea, heading straight towards the straight snail they had encountered before. The sea area of ​​​​the corner stone advances.

The Ortholiths swimming around the coral reefs had no idea that an expedition fleet for them was on the way.

(End of this chapter)