The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 313: Discovery Underground

Some other traces also appeared in the space worker's eyes. Combined with the analysis of the fungal mat spores and other structures at the microscopic level, Lin Yi basically figured out the situation - the winner was indeed the living side.

The nervous systems of these corpses had also suffered a special shock, in exactly the same way as the Ezki operators who had become vegetative and were taken out of the cockpits of those Ezki ground combat equipment on Earth by Lin Yi.

Probably at the moment when the other party decided to rebel, these people were directly taken over and controlled by the implanted brain-computer interface, causing the same thing as what happened in the Earth orbit before - a civil war among the escort ships in the exploration fleet.

What happened later was what Lin Yi saw now. The transport ship's nozzle was severely damaged, and two escort ships were destroyed. At least one of them was controlled by AI, and it was unknown whether the other one belonged to the original exploration fleet or was a warship controlled by AI.

These corpses may have been formed after the warships' armaments and power systems were paralyzed, and the Ezki people on the remaining warships sent armed forces to board the ships and kill the puppets that had already been controlled.

In short, most of the supplies on the two warships were also emptied, and the remaining warships carried all the hope and continued to search for habitable planets for development, preparing to complete the mission of the exploration fleet.

Combining the time of death of these corpses, Lin Yi can roughly calculate how long the other party has been away from here. Combined with the distribution of nearby stars, he can roughly guess the star system the other party may have reached. However, since the distribution of hyperspace channels is not yet completely clear, it may not be accurate.

Other nearby reconnaissance star scorpions have begun to mobilize rapidly, heading towards the direction of the star system where they are most likely to appear. In the orbit of the forward base planet in this star field, a series of constructions have also taken shape, preparing to begin the pupation of more reconnaissance star scorpions.

Tianyuan 4, Dikla planet.

There are large hollow structures in the crust of Diplodocus, which makes its gravity slightly lower than that of the Earth even though its diameter is slightly larger than that of the Earth. This has created a complex and diverse aerial ecology, and these underground environments also have an equally complex ecology.

Lin Yi already knew this and had begun exploring this underground world after transferring the Ezki exploration fleet here. After a period of exploration and analysis, some initial results have been achieved.

Dixella has astonishingly rich reserves of radioactive minerals, many of which are even exposed, allowing a large number of fungal life forms with radiosynthetic capabilities to grow and form the basis of the food chain as producers rather than decomposers like their surface relatives.

According to preliminary exploration results, the ecology of the underground world of Dikla Star is built on the basis of large and small radioactive veins. The veins are like oases in the desert, providing diverse ecological niches for countless creatures.

The farther away from the radioactive mineral veins, the more desolate the environment becomes. Although some organisms will migrate repeatedly between radiation zones for various reasons, some radiation zones are far away from other radiation zones, forming a certain barrier.

But this also makes the ecological environment of the underground world more diverse. The species of organisms in different radiation zones are obviously different. Some rich large radiation zones are very different from those relatively barren small radiation zones. For example, in those large radiation zones, there are symbioses of plants and fungi standing like towering trees, in which plants provide lignin trunks that support the main part, while fungi provide nutrients and emit fluorescence, allowing more plants to grow as primary consumers rather than producers.

All kinds of strange creatures shuttle through this forest of fungi and trees. There are also flying insects and even some small flying dragons that have evolved convergently with bats on Earth that fly by from time to time. For the colony, this is an extremely rich treasure trove of genetic sequences.

Even in a small radiation zone, there are always some species that can survive in harsh environments and bring surprises. Although the probability is small, the huge base number still allows strange species to appear from time to time.

Previously, the biggest harvest in the underground world was the giant arthropod that Lin Yi simply called the Dixon crab. The organic polymer material that constituted the endoskeleton support structure in their bodies was similar to plastic except that it was easily degradable. It was a good and cheap biomaterial.

After certain tests and improvements, some individual structures that do not pursue service life and have lower requirements for material performance have begun to use this rigid material that lacks strength but has lower resource consumption to replace various mineral-containing shell structures developed based on traditional exoskeletons.

And the comprehensive exploration of the underground world is still going on. From large-scale cysticercosis to small-scale ancient web-winged flying insects and even a large number of microscopic individuals continue to pour in from various channels on the surface, collecting a variety of biological samples.

Although most of them were of little use to Lin Yi, there were still occasional small surprises in details that allowed Lin Yi to slightly improve the existing structure. However, there was no major gain like the organic polymer structure before.

In addition to Lin Yi, the Anomalocaris nest group was also exploring the entire underground world from another side. Some strange flying-class individuals, such as the ancient web-winged insects on Lin Yi's side, flapped their swimming leaves and had structures similar to membranous wings or the feather-scale wings of native creatures, and traveled through the underground world.

The appearance of these individuals is still the same as the previous terrestrial shrimp, a mixture of vertebrates and arthropods, but their bodies are smaller and more slender, and they have two rows of dorsal lobes on their backs again, which can also swing like swimming lobes.

The structural improvements of these two pairs of dorsal lobes are somewhat similar to the scaly wings of the native creatures of Dikla Star, which can support their flight. Coupled with the luminous structure and three ancestral low-light night vision compound eyes, they can easily fly long distances in the underground world.

At this time, many flying shrimps and ancient web-winged flying insects cooperated with other large and small species in their respective nests to conduct a carpet search of the underground world. And because of the instant information transmission capability brought by the space synapse, genetic sequences were converted into language and transmitted to each other from time to time for real-time sharing.

Some technical exchanges at other levels are also carried out simultaneously. Structural concepts are proposed and verified through simulations, and finally the relevant gene fragments are improved and stored as technical reserves.

During the exploration, the Anomalocaris nest group suddenly sent back an incredible piece of information - some interesting creatures appeared in a radiation zone centered on a large radioactive mineral vein somewhere in the underground world.

(End of this chapter)