The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 167 Looking for anomalocaris nests

Since the discovery of genetic fragments suspected of being an Anomalocaris nest-level individual in the genetic sequence stored in the enemy's mother nest, Lin Yi has once again accelerated the search and destruction of the hostile nest group's mounds, trying to find more clues.

Lin Yi had two guesses about how the other party obtained the genetic sequence of the Anomalocaris nest-level individuals.

One is that individuals of this level washed up on the coast after dying naturally for some reason, were picked up by this terrestrial arthropod nest, and absorbed the genetic sequence.

According to speculation, the ancestors of this terrestrial arthropod nest group may have been similar to erect shrimps. They lived in the coastal intertidal zone, picking up the carcasses of marine animals washed up on the coast, and gnawing on the primitive bryophytes on the shore.

This can be known from the fact that their mother nest structure still maintains the shape of the mother nest in the sea, but they do not have a strong water combat level. In the early days, their mother nests were most likely still placed in the water.

Later, perhaps due to the influence of environmental changes after the mass extinction, they gradually penetrated deeper into the interior and established a mound structure on the shore to help the mother nest lock in water, and finally the whole body was mostly separated from the water source.

The second possibility is that the Anomalocaris nest entered fresh water and fought with semi-aquatic individuals such as the terrestrial arthropod nest in the river, leaving this corpse behind. Gene fragment.

If this is the case, then the fact that only this obvious fighting grade appears in the gene pool of the opponent's mother nest means that in the battle between the Anomalocaris nest group and the terrestrial arthropod nest group, even if it does not have an advantage, it will There is back and forth.

After the mass extinction, Lin Yi mainly searched for rich shallow sea areas, followed by open oceans with dense plankton. He had never searched fresh water in detail on a large scale. He just destroyed enemy nests and explored them at the same time.

After all, the freshwater ecosystem of this era is indeed imperfect. Apart from some strange garbage-picking benthic organisms, there are only migratory fish and the like, and the only top predator is horseshoe crab.

In fresh water, although the competitive pressure is much smaller than that in shallow-sea coral reef areas, there are relatively fewer physical resources. For nest groups with strong competitiveness, it is obvious to give up their basic base in the ocean and escape into fresh water. It's not cost-effective.

If we were to avoid competition, there was only one other nest group that could compete with the nest group. However, after the destruction of the Straight Spiral Stone Nest Group, Lin Yi never saw another marine nest group, except for himself.

And he himself has established contact with the anomaly shrimp nest group and does not interfere with each other. What's more, after the mass extinction, he and the other party have never met again.

Lin Yi may not have thought before that the Anomalocaris nest group might escape into freshwater development where there is less competition pressure but relatively fewer resources. This is undoubtedly detrimental to development.

Only then did he realize that in later generations, fossils of Schendeghans pasteurianus were unearthed on the banks of the Rhine River, proving that they were also a type of freshwater anomalocaridids, panarthropods, and could indeed adapt well to different salinities.

If the Anomalocaris nest group really escapes into fresh water like Schendhans shrimp, and no trace can be found in the ocean, it can be explained.

But there is another problem facing Lin Yi - the nest storage gene sequence stores the base pair structure in a similar digital form, so it will not be affected by the half-life of the gene chain, which means that these few The time when this gene fragment was entered into the mother's nest is unknown.

In other words, the time when the Anomalocaris nests entered fresh water is uncertain. They may have already escaped into fresh water and have moved to unknown places, or they may have just entered fresh water and are still in the adaptation stage. A large number of reconnaissance females swung their paddling feet, operated their water jet propulsion systems, and moved up rivers. Their echolocation systems were operating and they began to search for traces of Anomalocaris nests.

With the degree of specialization of the opponent's combat level, he would definitely not do too poorly in the freshwater ecosystem. However, the distribution may be limited, especially in some closed water bodies. Relying only on the detection of mother flies may not be effective.

Now, it is also impossible to rule out the possibility that the Anomalocaris nest group is trapped in a closed water body due to geological activities. Therefore, its investigation requires the action of the Kuaiyi Diver.

The long-winged divers carrying the Euglena took off from the mother nest groups in various places, curved their abdomens and soared in the sky. The Euglena at the end of the abdomen explored the closed water bodies everywhere and prepared to build ordinary nests in the water. .

These mother nests in the water will provide all the nutrients for several scout mothers, allowing them to explore the entire closed water body and look for possible traces of the Anomalocaris nest group.

After conducting an all-round search in the water and in the air, Lin Yi believed that as long as the Anomalocaris nests still existed in the world, he would definitely be able to find traces of the Anomalocaris nests.

But the fact is that after a period of time, the reconnaissance mother worms and the aerial reconnaissance divers searched almost all nearby water systems, but no trace of the Anomalocaridid ​​nest group was found.

In the process, Lin Yi destroyed the enemy's mound groups more than once, and even killed two leaf-clawed worms. However, there was no gene sequence stored in the mother nests in these mound groups. A genetic sequence similar to that of Anomalocaris was discovered.

The clue was once again broken, just like the Schendhans shrimp in later generations, which seemed to suddenly appear in the stratum and then disappear from the stratum just as suddenly. After a brief corpse fraud, it was never seen again.

Lin Yi couldn't help but delve further into the genetic sequence of the leaf-clawed worm. After cutting off the clues, he found that this was the only species that could be related to Anomalocaris - judging from its appearance and body structure, it had nothing to do with the order Deinocris. Lin Yi didn't believe in the relationship.

According to later research, the leaf-like structure on the back of the giant holodont is not a swimming leaf, but an immobile dorsal leaf structure, while the back plate of the leaf-clawed worm is more similar to the swimming leaf of Anomalocaris. Therefore, Lin Yi It is suspected that it possesses genetic fragments from Anomalocaris.

Having said that, the dorsal leaf structure of the leaf-claw worm seems to be the source of the wing structure of the insects in the other nest group. If it can be determined that these dorsal leaf structures originated from the swimming lobes of Anomalocaris, it can be concluded that the wings of insects originated from Anomalocaris. The swimming leaves are the result of this abstraction.

The primitive panarthropods and the most advanced group of true arthropods, two species that should be incompatible with each other, are inexplicably related to each other because of a nest group. In a sense, they are more abstract.

After going round and round, we are back to the task of destroying the nests of terrestrial arthropods - if we can obtain the other party's original nest and further analyze it, perhaps this process can once again find some new clues.

(End of this chapter)