The evolution of insect swarms from XNUMX million years ago

Chapter 45 An epoch-making grade
  Different from the honeycomb-shaped mother nest, the new "mother nest" is in the shape of a huge dumpling, and is a bit larger than the mother nest, with a length of almost ten meters, and is surrounded by a large number of marine kelps. handle.

All the nutrients filtered out by the sea ringworm clusters and those large crinoid-like structures are gathered into this huge cocoon-like structure. The body surface covered by its chitin exoskeleton is still squirming regularly, as if it is gestating something. .

After absorbing the genetic sequence of the mother nest of the Orthogonal Stone Nest Group for a period of time, no useful genetic sequence was obtained on the surface.

But it seems that after analyzing it, Lin Yi's ability to edit and control the mother's nest gene sequence has further improved, and many gene editing operations that were not possible before have become a reality.

This huge dumpling-shaped mother nest structure is the result of his use of the latest gene editing capabilities, a structure edited based on the genetic sequence of the mother nest.

Their structure is not complex at all, it is just that the densely packed, honeycomb-like holes on the original mother's nest are transformed into a huge hole to directly produce larger individuals.

Therefore, this structure is equivalent to a huge, reusable pupal sac, or like a dock, which allows large individuals to pupate and be produced directly like small individuals inside it.

After gaining a deeper understanding of the genetic sequence of the mother nest, Lin Yi also understood the principle of how the mother nest directly produces individuals.

Similar to Lin Yi's guess, the method is indeed similar to the metamorphosis of later generations of insects. It first produces multiple "embryos" similar to the imaginal disc structure in insect larvae, and then injects nutrients to allow each such adult embryo to develop rapidly.

However, later generations of insects dissolved most of the larvae's body structures and stored nutrients, allowing them to develop rapidly. The mother's nest directly injects nutrients stored in the mother's nest to allow the embryo inside to develop rapidly.

At this time, the pupation stage of the new template individual is coming to an end. In the consciousness, the vague and absent connections have become increasingly clear, proving that the synaptic structure connecting the other party to the hive mind consciousness is about to complete its growth.

And through this vague connection, his consciousness can be connected to the nervous system of the individual inside, and he can feel the throbbing from the individual and the surging vitality.

Nearby, under the control of Lin Yi, two workers swung their paddling feet and slowly swam to the front of the huge pupal sac. A pair of well-developed compound eyes looked at the huge body of the pupal sac.

The birth of an epoch-making new level is a historic moment for Lin Yi. Therefore, he controlled the worker to keep a close eye on the pupal sac with a pair of compound eyes. Anyway, the compound eyes do not have the function of blinking, so there is no need to worry about missing anything by blinking.

The huge pupal sac slowly separated from the middle and opened like a river clam, revealing a new grade of exoskeleton underneath that had not yet completely hardened.

A pair of huge thick sickle limbs slowly poked out, followed by a slanted trapezoidal slightly curved head and astonishingly huge compound eyes. There is a faint sound of exoskeleton friction passing among the water waves. It is the first cry of a newborn individual after it comes to the world.

The appearance of the new grade is highly similar to that of the fifty-oared warship horseshoe crab. There are only a few differences in appearance. For example, it has an extra pair of flat paddling feet like the second-generation soldier crab, and the shape of the blades on the sickle limbs is also slightly different. Modified.

Different from the flat spurs of the second-generation soldiers, the spurs on the new-grade sickle limbs are in the shape of a triangular pyramid and have strong armor-breaking capabilities. At the same time, it also has a structure similar to a blood tank, which can cause horrific damage to soft tissues and hard-shell tissues.

At the same time, the sword-shaped tail section was also strengthened by Lin Yi, giving it a sharp outer edge that can effectively pierce or chop, filling the attack blind spot in the rear hemisphere of the body. Of course, although the sword shape is a giant sword similar to a door panel, this will inevitably affect the thrust brought about by fanning the tail section.

In order to make up for it, Lin Yi installed a further upgraded water jet propulsion system for the new grade. It was based on the water jet propulsion system of the Straight Helical Stone and the improved water jet propulsion system of the Pioneer Mother Hao, so that its swimming ability was not bad at all.

At the same time, similar to the winged horseshoe crabs of later Silurian periods, the exoskeleton of the hind body segments of the fifty-oared horseshoe crab also has scale-like structures.

The structure of these scales is somewhat similar to the shield scales of later generations of sharks, which can effectively reduce resistance when swimming. Lin Yi also slightly improved them and installed them on a new grade of exoskeleton to further enhance its mobility.

The new grade's body size is close to eight meters, and even including a pair of sickle limbs, it is almost ten meters. This is why Lin Yi needs a special large-scale "shipyard" to pupate this giant insect, which is as long as an adult helical stone and far wider than it.

This size exceeds that of any arthropod in history. Therefore, Lin Yi made drastic changes to its internal structure. This is why he called the new grade an epoch-making grade.

The three key problems that plague arthropods as they increase in size, including nerve conduction problems, have been simply solved by myelin. As for the breathing problem, the modified book gills combined with the water jet propulsion system also perfectly solved the problem. In the end, there was only one problem left - the exoskeleton.

This problem can be broken down into two questions. First, the chitinous exoskeleton cannot grow with the growth of flesh and blood tissue, which means that arthropods need frequent molting to grow in size.

The bigger the body is, the more difficult it is to shed its skin. Each time it sheds its skin, it can be said to be a walk through the door of hell. This inherently limits the upper limit of arthropod body size.

Those large arthropods, such as winged horseshoe crabs, had no choice but to evolve their exoskeletons into leathery and scaly structures to facilitate molting.

But for Lin Yi, this is not a big problem. Inject calcium into the exoskeleton so that it can grow with the growth of flesh and blood tissue, or if the problem cannot be solved, solve the problem that caused the problem, and use a new pupal sac mother nest to pupate the individual at once, in one step.

However, the problem of muscle attachment area caused by exoskeleton is somewhat difficult.

Because the larger the body of a creature, the greater the ratio of the internal volume to the external area, which means that a mere exoskeleton wrapped outside the body cannot provide enough muscle attachment area, nor is it enough to support the body.

The larger the arthropod, the more fatal the problem became, so later generations of large arthropods were forced to use specialized hydraulic muscles instead of fibrous muscles to propel their bodies. For an arthropod of this level, hydraulic muscles cannot solve the problem.

After Lin Yi came up with countless unreliable solutions, the final solution he gave was that since the exoskeleton cannot provide enough muscle attachment area, then install an endoskeleton for a new level!

(End of this chapter)