The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 35 Communication Attempts
  After equipping the workers with a pressure-resistant exoskeleton and making some fine-tuning of the internal structure, Lin Yi controlled the mother nest to start cultivating such pressure-resistant worker templates, and at the same time controlled ordinary workers to search for them on the seabed.

The soldier's chelicerae rummaged through the sand on the seabed, and soon found a suitable target - an entire exoskeleton from a soldier.

The flesh and blood on it had been cut clean by the workers' claws, leaving only a single piece of the exoskeleton discarded on the seabed.

The worker used his chelicerae to pick up the fragmented exoskeleton, and then more nearby workers came and fixed the surrounding fragments of the exoskeleton.

Immediately, another worker opened its chelicerae and used the jagged protrusions on its chelicerae to slowly carve its exoskeleton.

Under Lin Yi's control, Gong Yu first carved out a simple acute-angled isosceles triangle with pincers, and then added a simple semicircle to the base of the triangle. The semicircle then extended downwards with several short lines, forming an abstract shape of corner stone.

Then, another oval is carved, with two small circles and two short lines added to the front end of the oval, and a triangle added to the back end, which is roughly the shape of an Anomalocaris.

Finally, he controlled the craftsman to carve an inverted pipa-shaped structure, with two slightly curved long lines on the front end, roughly forming the shape of a soldier crab, which is a feather-winged horseshoe crab.

Based on the previous performance of the anomalocaridids nest, Lin Yi guessed that their hive mind consciousness had a certain level of intelligence. Although it was not better than his own, it could still reach a level close to that of humans.

After all, with so many brains physically connected together, even primitive brains should be able to form relatively complex cluster intelligence.

Since they have a certain level of intelligence, it means they can also communicate.

Different from the nomadic life style, which showed strong aggression towards the colonizing female insects from the beginning, the Anomalocaris nest group has been half buried in the ground. It has not shown any aggression towards the soldiers before and is a communicative group. Object.

If the other party was really attacked by the Straight Spiral Stone Nest Group and fell to this point, it means that if the communication is successful, the other party is likely to become his potential ally.

In the absence of language, graphics have become the best means of communication.

Although he was not confident that the other party could understand his abstract paintings, Lin Yi still planned to give it a try.

The exoskeleton was complete enough for him to doodle on. First, simply draw the pattern representing the horned stone and the pattern representing the anomalocaridids together. The short lines representing the tentacles of the horned stone open up and wrap around the pattern representing the anomalocaridids, showing the scene of the horned stone attacking the anomalocaridids.

Then, the image representing the winged horseshoe crab is depicted being attacked in the same way as the horned stone. Then, the pattern representing the shrimp is intertwined with the pattern representing the soldier, showing the battle between the shrimp and the soldier.

Finally, the pattern representing the anomalocaridids and the pattern representing the soldiers are drawn together towards the pattern representing the corner stone, with their appendages spread out, which means that the shrimp and the soldiers jointly attack the corner stone. In this picture, the shape of the corner stone was specially designed by Lin. Yi's painting is a bit messy to show that he is being attacked. In order to prevent confusion caused by misreading the order, Lin Yi drew an arrow shape between each picture to facilitate the other party to understand the order in the most understandable way he could think of.

After all this work, several workers with pressure-resistant exoskeletons in the floating mother nest have also completed their cultivation.

Their chelicerae are similar to those of a groomer, showing a slightly curved pincer shape, and they also have blood-red compound eyes from the three-eyed Heder shrimp that can see clearly in low-light environments, allowing them to dim in the trench. environment to see clearly the scene in front of you.

Lin Yi planned to let the two pressure-resistant workers send the exoskeleton fragments carrying the information into the trench in an attempt to communicate with the Anomalocaris nest group. As for whether it was successful or not, it was just his attempt anyway. If it failed, it would not be much of a threat given the size of this anomalocaridid ​​nest group.

The two pressure-resistant turtles held the patterned exoskeleton between their chelicerae, swung their paddling feet, and slowly carried this extremely abstract painting, the first in history, downstream to the abyss. The blood-red compound eyes caught every ray of light, looking for the Anomalocaris.

This is the second time Lin Yi has dived into this trench, and this time, the pressure-resistant worker has dived deeper than before. After an unknown amount of time, a familiar flash of blood-red appeared in the compound eyes - it was a three-eyed Hed shrimp.

When it saw the worker, it quickly swung its leaf-shaped swimming legs on its side and fled backwards. At the same time, several figures appeared in the darkness - they were ordinary Anomalocaris. They quickly swam forward, preparing to protect the three-eyed Hed shrimp, which had a weak fighting ability.

However, the worker didn't hide at all. He raised the exoskeleton piece in the claws high and swung it to meet the swimming anomalocaris. Several strange shrimps also opened their appendages and came forward. The curved appendages hooked Gong Hao's body, the mouth awl bloomed, and the staggered tooth plates bit down like drops of blood, immediately cutting Gong Hao's body in half.

The blue horseshoe crab blood surged out, but the other worm did not avoid it at all - Lin Yi just controlled the two worms to go deep into the abyss, and he was already ready to sacrifice these two worms. Under his control, Gonghao still held up the exoskeleton piece in his chelicerae, shaking it in front of the opponent's eyes, trying to attract their attention.

An Anomalocaris stepped forward, bent its appendages, and firmly hooked the second shrimp. The mouth cone opened and closed, and the tooth plates staggered to bite down. As soon as the chelicerae of the worker loosened, the exoskeleton piece it was holding came out, and it turned weakly to the seabed and fell.

But just a second before the mouth cone composed of the interlaced tooth plates of the anomalocaridid ​​closed and cut the second gonghao in half, through the gonghao's compound eyes, Lin Yi could clearly see the eyestalk of an anomalocaridid. It turned as if it had seen something, and then swung its leaf-shaped swimming legs to chase the falling exoskeleton fragment. It stretched out the curved appendage under its head, hooked the fragment, and kept it in front of itself, while continuing to swim downward.

When the angle of view went dark, the mouth cones of the strange shrimp were chopped off staggeredly, cutting the body of the workhorse into two pieces. Lin Yi also lost his vision in the trench.

At the last moment, he saw an anomaly shrimp holding the piece of exoskeleton that he had high hopes for communicating with.

He didn't know whether the other party saw the pattern carved by Lin Yi, or simply recognized his companion's exoskeleton, or simply thought that what Gong Hao was holding on to was a large piece of biological flesh and was preparing to recover it. .

But anyway, the next step is to wait. Waiting for the other party to respond, or maybe he cultivates enough soldiers embedded with the pressure-resistant exoskeleton gene fragment of Anomalocaris and the night vision compound eye gene fragment of the three-eyed Hed shrimp to kill down the trench.

(End of this chapter)