The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 189 Carnivorous Plants

It has been some time since the first batch of shadowflies were produced by the mother nest on land.

Once these shadowflies were produced, they went deep into the dense fern forests and endless deserts under Lin Yi's control. They used their developed compound eyes and echolocation system to scan the earth and detect the situation in the distance.

Compared with other hive combat levels, their stronger self-care ability allows them to continue deep into the wilderness without the care of other hive levels, hunting wild animals along the way to replenish nutrients.

In a sense, they are indeed enhanced versions of wild animals, but the instincts in their genes have been modified. Reproduction is no longer the first task. Instead, it is to detect more information for the nest group.

In front of the pair of sharp bladed appendages, the creatures of this era are indeed difficult to resist. Even the most powerful predator of this era - Antiomon, is no match for Shadowfly.

It can be said that except for the overall cost that makes it unsuitable for large-scale mass production and is only suitable for small-scale special forces, the true combat effectiveness of Shadowflies is slightly better than that of Saw Ants.

But in terms of cost performance, the Saw Ants are still better - although the Shadowflies can easily defeat a single Sawflies, the siege of two Sawflies can easily defeat the Shadowflies. The resources required to produce one Shadowfly are still left over to produce two Sawtooth Ant Queens.

Therefore, in large-scale frontal combat, Shadowflies still cannot replace the pure combat level of the Saw Ant. After all, it is a special grade that performs reconnaissance missions, and it is difficult to play a role in the combat system of the nest group.

At the initial landing site, the fungi and mother nests continued to proliferate, and from time to time there would be swoopers taking off with carrier modules, going deep into the interior, crash-landing at the location suitable for establishing a mother nest detected by the shadowflies, and heading towards the mother nest on land. Begins to pupate.

In this way, the nest group once again expanded inland, and once again established a foothold on Pangea, which was no longer what it used to be in the Early Permian.

Stepping forward slowly, the shadowfly lowered its body into a new environment and slowly moved forward in a hidden posture. A pair of well-developed compound eyes scanned everything in front of it.

As soon as it entered the fern forest, the exoskeleton of the shadow fly immediately began to change color, showing a dark green, hiding its figure in the shadow of the fern forest. The bladed claw-like appendages are gathered in front of the body, eliminating the sharp edges and perfectly blending into the surrounding environment.

Shadowfly's head turned, and a pair of well-developed compound eyes looked around. The branches of the fern tree are knotted, the long leaves are extremely green, and there are pink and white flowers dotted among them, etc., flowers? !

At this time, Lin Yicai suddenly realized what was wrong - the earliest angiosperms, that is, flowering plants, did not appear until the early Cretaceous period. In this era, there should be no flowers.

These unnamed ferns and lycophytes grow extremely vigorously, and the scenery is extremely beautiful. But for some reason, from the moment he entered this fern forest, Lin Yi felt that something was wrong with these ferns, but he couldn't figure out what was wrong for a while.

The arriving shadowflies dispersed again, gathered their membrane wings, landed slowly, walked into the dense fern forest, and looked at the environment in the fern forest with their compound eyes.

After a period of time, the compound eyes of the shadowflies, which penetrated most deeply into the desert, finally showed another lush scene - a brand new dense fern forest.

The subconscious reaction from later generations made him habitually ignore the existence of these flowers, and it was only then that he suddenly realized it.

Although later generations also discovered the pollen organ structure of seed ferns from the Permian in the Ural Mountains, and there were even ancient Dictyoptera and Quechioptera insects to pollinate them, and both styles bloomed.

But there is no doubt that their appearance is slightly different from real flowers, and they cannot look like this. These "flowers" are different from those of most ornamental plants of later generations. They only have four petals, and the calyx and other structures are not well developed. Even the stamens in the center look a bit weird.

Thinking back carefully, after entering this fern forest, it seems that there are very few animals seen. There are only a few small ancient Dictyoptera insects moving around, and even the Acroptera that are supposed to prey on them are nowhere to be seen.

It stands to reason that the structure of flowers appears to attract pollinating insects. In other words, insects and flowering plants have evolved and prospered together.

But here, there are only bright flowers, but there are no pollinating insects during the flight, as well as other creatures that are attracted to prey on the pollinating insects. The situation seems a bit strange.

A guess immediately emerged in Lin Yi's mind.

And the next second, as if to confirm his guess, he saw an unknown small ancient Dictyoptera insect slowly landing on one of the "flowers", and seemed to be preparing to rest above it for a while.

The moment it landed on the "petals", the four petals suddenly closed and immediately wrapped the body of the small ancient Dictyoptera insect tightly in it!

The petals swayed, which was the last struggle of the ancient Dictyoptera insect.

The intensity of the struggle gradually weakened, and finally stopped shaking completely. After a while, the petals opened again, and the two remaining wings of ancient Dictyoptera insects slowly fell off, and some of them were almost swallowed by the moss structure wrapped on the ground.

Carnivorous plant - a term slowly emerged from Lin Yi's mind. These petal structures are similar to the insect traps of later Venus flytraps, designed specifically to serve as traps to capture insects.

At this point, everything is revealed. Why there are so few animals in this fern forest, and why it is so densely grown, is precisely because this fern forest is composed of the earliest carnivorous plants that have not been discovered by later generations.

Although it is unknown why highly specialized carnivorous plants similar to those of later generations appeared among primitive ferns, everything that happened before us showed that they were indeed carnivorous plants.

But soon, another question emerged from Lin Yi's consciousness again.

It stands to reason that carnivorous plants can only attack smaller insects and small arthropods, and they will still become prey when facing larger herbivorous animals.

Similarly, from the Late Carboniferous to the Early Permian, there were already large herbivorous animals such as Cuprosaurus, and Lin Yi had seen them eating plants before.

But in this fern forest, not only were the number of insects small, but almost all animals were missing. Only a large number of ferns grew densely, presenting a seemingly vibrant area.

A terrifying thought emerged from Lin Yi's consciousness again - could these plants not only attack small insects, but also prey on larger creatures in some way? !

(End of this chapter)