The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 77 “Backup Hidden Energy”

the other side.

In a deep trench like a crack on the seabed, the huge figure of the pioneer mother slowly passed by, driven by five pairs of paddling legs and a water-jet propulsion system, and the shadow it cast slowly submerged into the ocean abyss.

However, the trench where the pioneering mother is now located is not the trench where the Anomalocaris nest was before, but another place discovered by the pioneering mother.

But it was the behavior of the anomalocaridid ​​nests that escaped into the deep sea to avoid the snail nests that inspired Lin Yi to plan to build several mother nests in the deep sea as well, just in case.

The hollow shells filled with air chambers of the adult Orthospermites are less resistant to water pressure, and their poor vision in low-light environments also limits them in the dark deep sea, making it difficult for them to enter the deep sea for development. This is why the Anomalocaris nests have survived to this day.

Lin Yi now not only has a pressure-resistant exoskeleton and night vision compound eyes from the Anomalocaris nest, but also has an original echolocation system, which is enough to move freely in the dark.

And since the land nest plan failed because the land did not yet have a complete ecosystem, the deep sea became the best refuge to preserve fire for Lin Yi.

The genetic sequence of the brood does not require much modification to adapt to the water pressure of deeper waters. But just in case, Lin Yi chose to pupate into mother nests on both sides of the trench before sending workers down to explore.

The middle eye under the head scanned both sides of the trench, watching the giant eggs laid on the sea bed slowly move towards the mother nest.

Gradually, the mother nest took shape, and Lin Yi immediately controlled it to produce several nesting crafts that looked like crab bodies and horseshoe crabs - of course, the version with pressure-resistant shells and night vision compound eyes from the Anomalocaris nest group to adapt to the deep sea. environment of.

The nesting worker swung his paddling feet and slowly headed down into the abyss. Lin Yi's thoughts also spread out, preparing to carry out targeted transformation of the brood group under the deep sea.

Lin Yi has another purpose in setting up his mother's nest in the deep sea, besides guarding against the horned stone nests.

Among various natural disasters and environmental changes, the impact of the deep sea is often the smallest. This has been proved by countless surviving deep-sea relic species in later generations.

In a sense, the ability of existence forms such as nest colonies to cope with environmental changes is far superior to ordinary organisms, especially nest colonies with multiple different sizes and types.

As we all know, if a species wants to thrive for a long time, it is not enough to have a top ecological niche.

What really determines the success or failure of a species are the small animals that scavenge for food at the bottom of the food chain. They are the basis of a taxon. Once species in this niche are missing, no matter how powerful the top niche or no matter how stable the middle niche is, they will have no roots.

The closest example to Lin Yi is the pteropod horseshoe crab, and the most classic example in the history of life on earth is the non-avian dinosaur, both of which were lost to species that lacked the lowest ecological niche.

There are also the most miserable placoderms, which were hit by two extinction events in succession. The first time targeted those small basic niche species. The large species temporarily survived, but if they survived the catastrophe, there must be a follow-up attack to lay a solid foundation for vertebrates. All the placoderm fishes were wiped out early.

But if it is a true social nest with complex hierarchical differentiation, it will hardly encounter similar problems. As long as not all individuals are wiped out at the same time, the nest group will have enough time to find the grade most suitable for the current environment and produce it on a large scale.

Still taking the most classic extinction event as an example, if all dinosaurs, including birds, were a nest group similar to Lin Yi's current form, then the development of the mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous would be completely different.

Imagine that the dust over the Chicxulub crater disperses, the dragon is no longer there, the only remaining birds have structures that are too specialized and cannot be saved, and the bulk rats poke out from among the corpses of the previous overlords, Prepare to build a new dynasty of mammals on the ruins.

At this moment, a king Tyrannosaurus rex suddenly jumped out of the bird's nest, and then roared to the sky, telling the loose mice that your Grandpa Sauroptera is back again
  But Lin Yi was not satisfied with this. The essence of the extinction event is a major reshuffle, or it can be said to be a forced deletion of all Earth OL servers, forcing all creatures back to the same starting line to start competition from scratch.

Since time is uncertain, prepared nest groups will naturally have an advantage, but now, there are other nest groups. If everyone is pulled back to the same starting line, the final outcome is still uncertain.

In order to completely eliminate risks, Lin Yi decided to find a safe place to store some resources, just like inheriting part of the legacy of the previous week through some methods after opening the second game, so as to form an advantage earlier.

Previously, Lin Yi thought about land, but because land had not yet formed a complete ecosystem, it was difficult to establish a foothold and the cost was too high, so Lin Yi gave up.

Excluding land and the deep sea, it became the best choice. Therefore, in the mother nest group in the deep sea, Lin Yi will create some new levels based on the mother nest, and build it into a deep sea refuge for the nest group, not only to guard against the right spiral stone nest group, but also to avoid natural disasters of blow.

Due to the special characteristics of the nest group, as long as there are sufficient food resources, a large number of troops can be exploded to continuously form an advantage. Therefore, it is more cost-effective to store nutrients directly rather than store all grades together.

Since a large amount of nutrients needs to be stored, the structure used for storage becomes a top priority.

This requires Lin Yi to produce a brand new type of sessile organism on the bottom of the sea that is similar to the mother nest to store large amounts of nutrients.

It is envisaged that these structures will be filled with fat structures and connected to each other through structures similar to the digestive tract to facilitate the mutual transfer of nutrients.

In order to withstand the water pressure of the deep sea, its individual size cannot be made too large. In order to place as many individuals as possible in a certain space, the shape of the new structure will no longer be spherical or hemispherical like a mother's nest, but a hexagonal prism with a hexagonal cross-section similar to honeycomb holes.

There are gaps at the corners of the structure to allow the growth of Heilinella plants, further replenishing the nutrients in the structure.

The centers of these structures are connected to the mother's nest. When new individuals need to be produced, the fat in these structures will dissolve in a manner similar to pupation, and the dissolved nutrient solution will be injected into the mother's nest or pupal sac to supply It produces individuals of various grades.

But similarly, due to the special nature of the deep sea mother nest group, Lin Yi also needs to produce some other grades in this rear area and refuge to prepare for special situations.

Thinking about it, he once again edited the genetic sequence of structures such as the brood, trying to produce some special brood-like fixed structures to achieve his goals.

(End of this chapter)