The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 41 The Road to Death
  In addition to leaf shrimps, the bivalved shell arthropods in these waters also include baghead shrimps.

Their appearance is even more abstract than that of leaf shrimps, with a head that looks like a spiny insect and a body that looks like anomalocaris with leaf legs at the back and lower part. In front of the head, a pair of extremely large compound eyes make their appearance more abstract.

These should be the Diclaria hirschii, the earliest baghead shrimp discovered in later studies. This further proves that Lin Yi has found the right place.

Their shells alone are nine centimeters long, which is huge enough compared to those leaf shrimps. The first few pairs of appendages in front of their bodies are also relatively developed, indicating that they may be a swimming predator similar to isospins.

But after Lin Yi controlled the worker to capture one and extracted its genetic sequence, he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed.

The genetic sequence of the baghead shrimp is unremarkable - it seems that such surprises as the venom glands of the stinging insect do not come often.

There are also a large number of strange small conodonts swimming on the seabed, as well as some armored fish. They are different from the Sakaban soft-shell turtle and the Aranda soft-shell turtle. Their shells have rows of dot-like protrusions, like stars. .

There is no doubt that this is the most classic armored fish of the Ordovician - the star turtle. Of course, having a krypton gold skin still can't change their nature of just picking up garbage and eating, and they are currently rummaging in the sand on the seabed.

The Star Turtle is a bit large and requires a soldier's attack. Lin Yi controlled a second-generation soldier with its sickle limbs spread out, flowing from top to bottom. He easily tore the body of a star turtle with its sickle limbs covered with thorns, and then clamped it with a pair of smaller sickle limbs. Live and bring it back to the nest.

After extracting the genetic sequence as usual, the soldiers continued to guard the floating mother nest, leaving only a large number of workers to continue sweeping the seabed.

As for the job of picking up garbage, the Ginger may not be as good as other creatures, but it is definitely a good hand at catching other creatures that pick up garbage. As the saying goes, if you can't solve the problem, solve the problem - the person who picks up garbage can't pick up other people. , just pick others up and finish the job.

The genetic sequence stored in the brood has once again expanded because the composition of the underlying organisms, such as benthic worms, is slightly different from that found in most environments.

Suddenly, in Lin Yi's consciousness, a vision went dark - something was attacking a worker again.

The other nearby workers immediately stepped forward and saw the predator's full appearance - a long and straight body with numerous paddling appendages, a pair of large compound eyes on its head, and a pair of huge attack weapons. The sexual appendage looks somewhat like the mantis shrimp of later generations, but without a hammer.

After thinking for a moment, Lin Yi remembered this guy's identity - Youhe Chong. It belongs to the large appendage group like Isospinidae and is a Cambrian predator on the same table as Anomalocaridida.

These Cambrian versions of the shrimp were also ambush predators that burrowed on the seabed. The unlucky worker died after being penetrated by the large appendage of a Youhe insect.

The body size of the worms discovered in later generations did not even exceed ten centimeters, but the one shown before us was two-thirds the size of the plant. It seems that they not only won the resurrection competition at the end of the Cambrian period, but also successfully became larger.

With this size and hardware structure not very suitable for combat, it would be difficult to deal with it. Lin Yi controlled a soldier to swing its paddling feet, swim down from above, spread its scythe limbs, and kill the Youhe insect who had succeeded in one attack and was about to continue escaping into the cave.

Before Youhe Insect could react, its sickle limbs opened and closed, and clusters of blade thorns immediately penetrated its body. Tissue fluid surged out. The incompletely arthropodized body was vulnerable to the sharp blade thorns and was immediately chopped into two. cut.

Skillfully bringing the Youhe insect back to its mother's nest, Lin Yi began to absorb its genetic sequence. Although he didn’t intend to absorb any good things from these remnants of the former dynasty, his long-term habit allowed him to skillfully stuff them into the hole-like structure on the surface.

But what he didn't expect was that there were actually some gene segments he needed in the Youhe insect's genetic sequence.

The large appendages have a strong jaw base structure - it seems to be a pan-arthropod other than trilobites. The jaw structure is stronger than that of chelicerates. Even anomalocaridids such as Anomalocaris have a strong mouth cone structure.

Unlike the mouth cones of Anomalocaris, whose main purpose is killing rather than chewing, the mouthparts of large appendages can be regarded as real chewing structures, and even have the ability to crack open hard shells.

The relevant gene sequence was immediately stored in the mother's nest by Lin Yi, waiting to be installed on the next generation of workers and mothers, working together with the chelicerae to enhance their chewing ability.

The few workers still hanging upside down on the whisker-like structure below the floating mother nest looked with their compound eyes. The seabed below was full of similar holes - needless to say, they naturally belonged to more Youhe insects.

For the various bottom-dwelling creatures that scavenge for food on the seabed, this is a road to death with murderous intent hidden everywhere. But for Lin Yi, it was a good place to replenish nutrients.

Under his control, Gonghao stretched his chelicerae towards the entrance of the hole, shook his chelicerae to "fish" out the Youhe insect below, and then Binghao swung his sickle from top to bottom to kill it.

These Cambrian relics had never seen such a battle before. After a while, Lin Yi had almost captured all the Youhe insects nearby, and all of them entered the holes on the surface of the mother nest.

After fishing for a while, in line with the concept of sustainable fishing in dry swamps, Lin Yicai controlled the craft to bypass those holes, let go of the remaining Youhe insects, and continued to move forward.

Moving forward, the bodies of leaf shrimps, star turtles and conodonts are getting denser and denser, and the number of predators such as stingworms, baghead shrimps, and stork bugs is also increasing. Trilobites, not a single corner stone was seen.

The baghead shrimp is relatively timid, but perhaps relying on its venom glands, the stinging insects have more than once dared to attack workers and even soldiers that are much larger than themselves. Although most of them ended up being counter-killed.

But until now, Lin Yi has not discovered the existence of the apex predator belonging to the Dikla Crater. This was why he was never sure whether he was really in the right place.

But suddenly, a soldier seemed to notice something in his compound eyes. Lin Yi immediately controlled the soldier to swing its tail and paddling feet, and swam forward to confirm.

Getting closer, Lin Yi finally saw the face of the visitor clearly. The main body is eel-shaped, and its structure is similar to that of later lampreys. There are faintly visible sharp teeth in the mouth, indicating that they must be a predator.

At the front of the body, a pair of huge eyeballs bulge, with an indescribable feeling in the eyes, like the eyes of a sea monster, which makes its already strange body even more weird.

This seemed to be a conodont, but even from this distance, it could be seen that its size was exaggerated compared to those of its kind - now, Lin Yi was sure that he had indeed found the right place.

(End of this chapter)