The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 13 Meeting the Cornerstone Again

In the endless blue, the huge body of the pioneer mother slowly advances with the swing of five pairs of weight-bearing... ah no, paddling feet.

The wide body cavity contracts rhythmically with the expansion and contraction of the internal water sac, and the water is discharged from the jet hole opened in the abdomen to promote the body to swim better.

The workers and soldiers who set out together accounted for almost half of the current nest population. The pioneer female has a broad back and numerous scaly protrusions on its abdomen. The soldiers who were modified from the feather-winged horseshoe crab template took turns to rest on the back of the pioneer mother, while the workers with pincers used their pincers to clamp the scale-like protruding structure on the abdomen of the pioneer mother and hang upside down under the mother's body. .

The three pairs of feeding appendages on the head side of the female pioneer are wide open, and the fine whisker-like structures are connected between the three pairs of appendages to form a filter that filters out plankton along the way.

At the water suction port, there is also a whisker-shaped filter structure, which allows the water jet propulsion system of the pioneer mother to filter plankton in the water to a certain extent and obtain more food.

This filter feeding efficiency is higher than that of the Poseidon shrimp. While supporting the life activities of the pioneering mother, it can also supply part of the nutrients consumed by the soldiers and workers.

However, due to the large number of following individuals, frequent hunting is still required to obtain nutrients to supply the consumption of this expedition fleet.

During the Ordovician period, the ocean water level was higher than when Lin Yi lived in his previous life, flooding large coastal areas and creating a fairly vast and fertile shallow sea.

According to the perception in the conscious connection, the pioneer mother has swam quite far away, but is still in the shallow sea.

Along the way, the pioneering mother turtle discovered two relatively fertile sea areas. The two worker turtles broke away from the mother turtle's body, swam to the bottom of the sea, half-buried their bodies on the seabed, and began to pupate towards the mother's nest.

At the same time, the two soldiers followed the workers who were about to become the future mother nest, preparing to protect the mother nest through the development period.

As expected, both coral reefs already have owners. One of them is occupied by an adult giant horseshoe crab.

But at present, although the general structure has not changed, each system has been upgraded in all aspects. The soldier who is better than the old can easily use the digestive juice in the poison sac to end this giant that has the same root as the nest group. insect.

The other, larger coral reef was richer than Lin Yi had imagined.

There seems to be an ocean current passing nearby, bringing rich nutrients. In the upper waters outside the coral reef, the Poseidon Helmet Shrimp appeared again.

A large number of wild sea buds and sea rings are swaying against the waves, and there are countless strange echinoderms that cannot be named, either lying on the sea bed or standing among the waves, allowing people to get a glimpse of the evolution of their extreme skins. history.

Sacaban soft-shell turtles swam among them, and conodonts as slender as eels preyed on strange benthic worms with their mouths filled with strange fangs.

Trilobites also appear on the seabed. But the diversity of trilobites here is far richer than anywhere Lin Yi has ever visited before. The most conspicuous ones are the Overlord and other insects that can reach a length of seventy centimeters and are covered with heavy armor. Beside him, the sickle bug whose head armor is curved like a crescent moon and the toothed rib insect whose body is covered with spikes and stacked anti-armor are surrounded like stars over the moon. This is the last glory of the trilobite family, but it is still changing. Except for the fact that they will eventually be unable to impact the ecological niche of predators, and will remain inferior to humans for hundreds of millions of years.

Suddenly, the giant shadow passed by, swooped down from above, and ten red tentacles suddenly descended. The trilobites around them fled, but the giant shadow didn't even look at them, and rushed straight towards the overlord and others in the center. Weigh the insect and wrap its tentacles tightly around its body.

Under the tentacles, the worm struggled vigorously, its appendages frantically digging through the sand, trying to get into the seabed and hide.

But the hunter who captured it was unwilling to give up. As its arms and legs entangled, the giant body of the worm was pulled off the seabed. Immediately, a pair of sharp hook-shaped horny beaks bit hard at its thick exoskeleton.

Among the rising mud, the full picture of the old rulers was revealed in front of them. The familiar conical shell and soft tissue all showed its identity - the corner stone. Lin Yi had encountered their corpses before, but now, The living ones appeared.

According to the results of the study, Cornerstone's shell is thick and flexible, making it unlikely to be an active swimming predator. But now it seems that they have found their own ecological niche - eating trilobites on the bottom of coral reefs where the currents are relatively gentle. The huge Overlord and other insects are their first choice targets.

But this also means that conflicts with large predatory horseshoe crabs, including Lin Yi's Gu clan nest group, are inevitable results.

This also allowed Lin Yixiang to gain a foothold in this coral reef area, so he had to get rid of this cornerstone and seize its territory.

Taking stock of the current combat effectiveness, although the pioneer mother has a huge body, it has no offensive appendages and cannot cause effective damage.

The claws of the Gonghao are only suitable for tearing the flesh and blood from dead prey, and the effect of direct attacks is not very good. Only the Gonghao, which was born from the giant feather-winged horseshoe crab, can cause effective damage to the Cornerstone.

But this time, there were twenty soldiers dispatched to follow the pioneer mother. Except for one worker who is guarding the incarnation mother nest at another nesting site, the rest are closely following the pioneering mother, ready to attack the corner stone at any time.

Like its later cephalopod relatives, Cornerstone has a sharp, parrot-like horny beak - considering that cephalopods appeared hundreds of millions of years before birds, it should be said that parrots have Cornerstone-like horny beaks, but now This is not the time to worry about these things. The beak and the radula structure of the mollusk can cause horrific damage, so you need to be careful.

The tentacles of the hornstone are different from other cephalopods of later generations. They do not have a sucker structure. They only have a small number of small horny protrusions used to grasp prey. They are not as flexible as their close relatives in later generations, which makes it easier to deal with.

Thinking about it, Cornerstone has completely captured the Overlord and other known insects. The sharp horny beak effortlessly broke through the strong exoskeleton of the Overlord and other insects, and then the radula filled with small teeth stretched out, scraping off a large piece of the flesh below like a file, and brought it into the mouth. middle.

It has to be said that the eating efficiency of molluscs is still higher. The tissue fluid dispersed in the water along with the carapace fragments, immediately attracting nearby Sakaban soft-shelled turtles to eat. Cornerstone seemed a little displeased and waved his tentacles twice, as if to drive away these small fish that came to suck up the residue.

But it did not notice that in the distance at this time, countless figures were slowly surrounding it from all directions, showing pairs of ferocious sickle limbs and sharp poisonous stingers.

(End of this chapter)