The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 42 Fifty-Oar Warship Horseshoe Crab
  A conodont of this size was only found in the Dikla Crater in later generations. Its appearance represented Lin Yi's goal, which was not too far away.

The distance between the two sides further narrowed, so close that Binghao's compound eyes could clearly see the seven pairs of staggered zigzag-shaped conodont molecules in the opponent's mouth.

This also allowed Lin Yi to determine the identity of the opponent - the giant Iowa Jaw. The largest conodont in history with unprecedented size can only be found in one place - the Vanessa Shale in the Dikla Crater.

This Iowa jaw was more than two meters long, probably the largest it could reach.

Compared with their smaller counterparts, which are less than ten centimeters in size, they are undoubtedly huge, but in the waters near the Dikla crater, they are not the real top predators.

In Bing Ge's compound eyes, he could already see a larger figure approaching slowly.

A pair of sickle limbs appeared in the field of vision. The sharp blades cut hard and tore open Iowa Jaw's body. The bright red vertebrate blood surged out and spread among the blue waves.

This pair of sickle limbs is different from the sickle limbs of the feather-winged horseshoe crab and the improved sickle limbs of the soldiers. They are thicker and have particularly ferocious curved hook claws at the end, which are somewhat similar to the blades on the sickle limbs of the second generation soldiers. Thorny, and equally thick.

On each section of the sickle limb, there are three thick blades arranged like a trident. Together with the hooks at the end, the overall shape is like a strange weapon called a wolf.

Just by looking at it, you can tell that this is a terrifying weapon that is several times more powerful than the sickle limb of the feather-winged horseshoe crab.

At this time, Iowa Jaw proved this with his own body. The original spine and other bones were broken root by root, and the twisted half of the body fell weakly to the seabed with the red blood gushing out.

In the bloody waves, the figure of another giant insect appeared in Lin Yi's eyes. It has a similar appearance to the soldier crab, the feather-winged horseshoe crab, but has sharper edges and corners. Its head is an oblique trapezoid instead of an oval shape similar to the feather-winged horseshoe crab.

There are flat prismatic protrusions on both sides of each segment of the hind body. The end of the hind body does not have the scorpion tail and crescent-shaped broad flat telson of the feather-winged horseshoe crab, but a sword-shaped tail.

All this proves that it is also a kind of plate-footed horseshoe crab, but its size is much larger than that of the feather-winged horseshoe crab and the improved soldier grasshopper. Its body size is close to that of the filtered foreign horsefly and the pioneering motherfly.
  There is only one species of plate-footed horseshoe crab with such an appearance in the history of life on earth, which is exactly the goal of Lin Yi's trip!

The Dickla Fifty-Oar Warship, named after a type of ship driven by fifty sailors' oars, was probably the most magnificent ship of its time.

They are the earliest known large plate-footed horseshoe crabs and were the undisputed apex predators in the oceans of the Middle Ordovician Darivian Period. Even now, with all kinds of hives and demons dancing around, they are still a force that cannot be underestimated.

Lin Yi's trip was precisely for the genetic sequence of the fifty-oared horseshoe crab.

The soldiers immediately stepped forward under his control, swung their tails and paddling feet, spread their sickle limbs wide, and swayed their bushy blades to attack the huge horseshoe crab with fifty oars.

The fifty-oared horseshoe crab opened its sickle limbs widely, and a pair of smaller sickle limbs continued to tear the Iowa jaw stump that was torn in half by the sickle limb. A pair of chelicerae tore the flesh and blood and slowly brought it into the mouth. middle.

At this time, under the control of Lin Yi, the soldiers had already arrived, surrounding the huge body of the fifty-oared warship horseshoe crab from all directions. The poisonous tail spines swayed as the tail clip opened and closed, faintly flashing with a cold light. A pair of compound eyes glanced over, and the opponent also discovered the incoming enemy. He casually ate the remains of the Iowa jaw between the two sickle limbs, released the sickle limb, dropped it, and rushed towards the soldiers.

At the moment of the confrontation, Lin Yicai realized something was wrong. Binghao's sickle limbs are designed to cause damage to the soft tissue of the helical stone. The blades are clustered and even have a blood groove-like structure to pierce and tear out the soft flesh. It is quite powerful, but when faced with the solid exoskeleton, it is a bit difficult. It took a lot of effort.

The strength of the exoskeleton of the fifty-oared horseshoe crab is not comparable to that of arthropods such as Anomalocaris. It was a bit difficult to cut through the thicket of blade thorns. For a while, there were only white marks on its exoskeleton.

But looking back at the fifty-oared horseshoe crab, its sickle limbs, which are more developed and thicker than Binghao's, easily broke through Binghao's exoskeleton. The blue horseshoe crab blood surged out and mixed with the blood of Iowa's jaw that had not dispersed. at.

In the thick blood waves, the huge body of the fifty-oared warship horseshoe crab swung its paddling feet and slowly swam out.

Bing Hao's mangled body was torn apart like a rag bag and slowly fell, dragging a trail of azure horseshoe crab blood. The hideous scars on the exoskeleton told of the violent destruction it had suffered before.

More soldiers spread out under Lin Yi's control, then changed direction, closed the encirclement, and opened their sickle limbs wide to attack the fifty-oared warship horseshoe crab.

But the other party did not avoid it at all, and also came to kill with its sickle limbs spread wide. After a fight, two more soldiers were torn apart on the spot by the sickle limbs of the fifty-oared warship horseshoe crab.

Immediately, the sword-shaped tail of the fifty-oared warship stabbed, and the body of another soldier was torn apart, and blood spattered on the spot.

This thing turned out to be more difficult to deal with than the adult Orthospermum, which made Lin Yi more determined to capture it and extract its genetic sequence. He believes that the grade developed based on the fifty-oared horseshoe crab will be fully sufficient to fight against the swordfish-shaped Hed shrimp or the adult straight helix.

During the fight, a soldier's sickle limb finally locked onto the body of the fifty-oared warship Horseshoe Crab. Although the defense was still not broken, it at least fixed the opponent's body.

Lin Yi immediately controlled the soldier to bend its scorpion tail, and expertly clamped the tail clip onto the body of the fifty-oared horseshoe crab. He aimed the tail spine at the joint between the opponent's body segments and stabbed it hard, injecting digestive juices into it.

Although the exoskeleton is strong, there are still gaps at the connections between body segments. The slender tail spines easily penetrated the intersegmental membrane between the body segment gaps. The poison sac is squeezed and digestive juices begin to be injected.

More soldiers came forward under Lin Yi's control, clamped the body of the fifty-oared horseshoe crab with their sickle limbs, bent the scorpion tail, and inserted the tail sting into the gap, injecting digestive juices.

A large amount of digestive juice flows along the open-tube circulation system, wreaking havoc on the cells and tissues along the way. The huge fifty-oared warship horseshoe crab suddenly began to struggle violently, and then the intensity of its struggle slowly weakened, proving that its vitality was losing.

After a period of time, the body of the fifty-oared warship horseshoe crab finally stopped struggling completely and fell weakly toward the seabed, dragging Binghao's body with it as well.

Seeing this, Binghao also released his sickle limbs and let go of the dead fifty-oared warship horseshoe crab. Afterwards, Lin Yi controlled the workers to step forward and used his chelicerae to tear off the exoskeleton of the fifty-oared warship horseshoe crab.

(End of this chapter)