The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 4 Corner Stone, "Whale" Falls
  In this era when most of the eyes of other animals are still primitive small hole-shaped eyes, the compound eyes of arthropods have basically become perfect and are almost the same as those of later generations. The pair of huge compound eyes on the more than one meter long body of the feather-winged horseshoe crab made Lin Yi's perspective not unfamiliar at all.

The inner bay where the mother nest is located is calm, and the few individual feather-winged horseshoe crabs controlled by Lin Yi are the only predators. The rest are only the Sakaban soft-shell turtles and a small number of trilobites, which are probably a safe haven for the horseshoe crabs when they are vulnerable before and after molting.

Swinging its tail, the nerve-enhanced feather-winged horseshoe crab slowly swam into the open sea.

Under Lin Yi's control, the scorpion-like flat body was still clinging to the seabed, and it used its well-developed compound eyes to observe the surroundings from time to time, guarding against possible threats.

The scene in front of me is still the same. Trilobites of all kinds are crawling on the seabed in search of food. When they sense the arrival of predators, they immediately flee in all directions. If they cannot escape, they simply use their countless pairs of short jointed limbs to quickly dig up the sand. , burying themselves in the sand to try to avoid predators.

There are also scattered Sakaban turtles with their small inverted triangular mouths open, picking up scraps on the seabed. As for the approach of horseshoe crabs, as primitive vertebrates, their response speed is much higher than that of trilobites. However, due to the lack of pectoral fins and other structures of later fish, they can only swim away awkwardly with their long tails.

But Lin Yi didn't even look at them. He controlled his body and continued to split the water waves and swim toward the distant sea. Its well-developed compound eyes scan the seabed, exploring this familiar yet unfamiliar world. At the same time, the underdeveloped sense of smell and hearing are also trying their best to perceive everything around them.

Swimming forward, his olfactory organs faintly sensed a special smell. Lin Yi immediately controlled his body to speed up and swam in the direction it came from, wanting to see what happened.

After walking around a reef, the sight in front of him made Lin Yi couldn't help but be shocked by the non-existent jaw on this body.

A huge, room-like conical shell lay across the seabed. The astonishing length of more than five meters was considered huge even in the era when Lin Yi lived. It was like the pattern on the nautilus shell of later generations. The light red lines appear on the off-white shell, making it somewhat beautiful.

At the opening at the front end of the conical shell, there is a soft head similar to that of later squids, but at this time, ten thick and long tentacles hang feebly around, and the primitive structure of the eyes is empty, indicating that this animal The great Old One-like cephalopods were dead.

Cornerstone, the largest animal in the Ordovician period, appeared in many documentaries as the "straight-shelled nautilus" in Lin Yi's previous life, and was described as a powerful and ferocious predator.

Although follow-up research showed that the order Entholitha to which it belonged was unlikely to be an active predator due to its shell structure, its body length of five to six meters was still enough to stand out in this era.

There were no fatal wounds on the body surface of the dead giant cornerstone in front of Lin Yi. It should have died at the end of its life. There were only some small scars on the tentacles that had not yet evolved the suction cup structure of later generations of cephalopods.

And countless arthropods that look like small feather-winged horseshoe crabs at first glance, but do not have the pair of ferocious sickle limbs in front of the blunt head and chest are climbing on the huge corpse of Corner Stone, slowly gnawing at the small scars. .

Their bodies are stubbier than those of horseshoe crabs, and they do not have a long tail like a scorpion's tail. Their body shape is more like a large spider with a cephalothorax and abdomen about the same width. There is only a thin rapier-like sword at the end of the hind body. The thin tail spines prove their identity - a distant relative of the feather-winged horseshoe crab, a member of the spiny-tailed horseshoe crab family.

According to the memories of past lives, it seems that they should be called short-winged horseshoe crabs, and they are one of the earliest members of the order Platypods. Their body size is only twice the size of an adult's hand, making them very small compared to feathered horseshoe crabs.

Different from the suborder Pleuropods to which the feather-winged horseshoe crabs belong, the suborder Spinytail Horseshoe Crabs to which the short-winged horseshoe crabs belong are mostly bottom-dwelling scavengers that scavenge and eat garbage. Their last pair of appendages have not evolved into paddle-shaped stools. You can see it. And the huge corpse of the corner stone is their gluttonous feast, causing all the short-winged horseshoe crabs from an unknown distance to gather here.

Among the short-winged horseshoe crabs, there are also juvenile feather-winged horseshoe crabs. Some larvae are even smaller than short-winged horseshoe crabs, but their ferocious sickle-shaped appendages are already beginning to show their edge.

Even the Sacaban soft-shelled turtle and the trilobite were attracted by this feast of benthic creatures. The former opened its small triangular mouth and swam to suck in the food residues torn off by other creatures, while the latter was swimming with the short-winged horseshoe crab. The corpse climbed onto the corner stone together and began to gnaw on it with its primitive mouthparts.

This huge corpse of the cornerstone has become the Ordovician version of a whale falling, perfectly interpreting the scene of a whale falling and all things being born, or in other words, a stone falling and a thousand insects growing.

Although Lin Yi did not come here for food, he would not let go of such a huge and easily accessible corpse.

Controlling his body to sink slowly, he swam towards the huge corpse of the corner stone. The body of an adult horseshoe crab passes over the top of the carcass, casting a shadow.

Immediately, the body squeezed through the group of short-winged horseshoe crabs like a giant ship breaking into a group of sampans, stretched out its legs, and landed on the corpse. It waved a pair of ferocious sickle-shaped appendages twice to drive away the nearby short-winged horseshoe crabs and larvae. Horseshoe crab.

The sickle limb stretched out and scratched hard on the soft body of Corner Stone's huge corpse, immediately creating a shocking huge scar. Immediately, a pair of smaller sickle limbs and chelicerae next to the mouth tore at the corner stone meat and began to eat.

Not only eating, Lin Yi also planned to bring some Cornerstone's flesh and blood back to the mother's nest for absorption in order to read the Cornerstone's genetic sequence. Therefore, he controlled his body and waved his sickle limbs, trying to dismember Cornerstone's body and bring back a tentacle for the brood to absorb.

The short-winged horseshoe crab is also a species he has encountered for the first time. He also plans to hunt one for the mother's nest to absorb and obtain its genetic sequence.

But before Lin Yi could make his next move, suddenly, the water flow fluctuated again. He sensed something was wrong, and suddenly controlled his body, swung his tail, and took a few steps back.

The myelin structure from the Sakaban soft-shell turtle made all this happen in an instant, and the next second, a pair of the same ferocious sickle limbs pinched Lin Yi's feather-winged horseshoe crab's body at the previous position.

Then, a huge feathered horseshoe crab that was about the same length as Lin Yi's body swung its tail and swam slowly towards him!
  Finally, another adult feather-winged horseshoe crab was attracted by the huge corpse of Cornerstone, ready to get a share of the pie. Seeing that an adult of the same kind was already occupying the place, they directly launched a sneak attack, but Lin Yiyi had upgraded his nervous system. Easily dodge with reaction speed.

Even though Cornerstone's corpse was enough to feed two adult horseshoe crabs, Lin Yi had to prepare extra food for the nest, so it was naturally impossible for him to give in. The other party also seemed to have no intention of giving in. A big battle was inevitable.

(End of this chapter)