Since he can't do it forcefully, the protagonist has no choice but to experiment with other methods.
The characteristics of this thread-parasitic fungus reminded the protagonist of leeches. Leeches are locusts, which live by sucking the blood or body fluids of people and animals. They mainly live in freshwater reservoirs, ditches, paddy fields, and lakes.
One characteristic of leeches is that once they bite their prey, they will not let go easily. If the leech is pulled out with brute force, the sucker will remain in the wound, causing infection and ulceration.
This is exactly the same as the thread-parasitic fungus that will take away the life of the host at the same time even if it is pulled out.
To deal with leeches that have been bitten, humans usually use cooling oil, cigarette butt water, salt, strong vinegar, alcohol or white wine, chili powder, lime, etc. to sprinkle on the insect body, or burn it with fire to make it loosen its suckers and fall off on its own. .
There are no other materials in the ant nest, but there are still some fire and salt.
Needless to say, the fire is the kindling brought from the main nest in the combustion chamber. Table salt is the mineral rock salt collected by ants.
Ants like to eat salt, which is a trivial knowledge that the protagonist only learned after traveling through time. Before, he thought that ants only liked sugar.
What the protagonist doesn't know is that in his past life, a research project sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the Amazon Conservancy found that some ants are actually less fond of sugar and more fond of salty treats, at least when they live far away from the ocean. This is the case in the salt-less area.
All animals from ants to humans need salt to maintain the mobility of their body's nerves and muscles and the balance of water. Generally speaking, ants and other insects can obtain a certain amount of salt supplements from daily food.
The researchers speculated that the taste of ants would differ depending on their location, so they tested ants at different distances from the ocean for their preference for salt or sugar, and found that ants farther away from the ocean preferred salt.
In a buffet experiment, researchers provided ants with a choice of cotton balls soaked in salt or sugar. Scientists have discovered that ants living more than 100 kilometers inland prefer cotton balls soaked in salt as a delicacy.
This preference is mainly seen in vegetarian ants, because carnivorous ants obtain enough salt from their prey, while vegetarian ants cannot.
While herbivores such as cows and deer can only obtain salt by licking salty soil, wolves and other carnivores obtain salt from bloody meat.
After thinking of countermeasures, the protagonist immediately ordered some worker ants to bring some salt and torches to test the efficacy against thread-parasitic bacteria.
The first thing to do is the salt test. The protagonist asked the worker ants to apply a large amount of salt grains on the backs of the infected soldier ants to observe the reaction.
Salt can be said to be poison to some insects. If you throw salt on a slug or snail, the mucus layer on its body contains a lot of water. When it encounters salt, the salt particles will dissolve into a salt solution. A high-concentration salt solution The osmotic pressure is much greater than the osmotic pressure of the intracellular fluid in the slug cells. Due to osmosis, maintaining the balance of osmotic pressure will directly cause the cells to lose a lot of water. Under the action of high-concentration salt solutions for a long time, slugs and snails will suffer from severe Death from dehydration.
The protagonist was full of expectations for the efficacy of salt, but when the salt was sprinkled on the thread-parasitic fungi, nothing happened as the protagonist expected.
Probably because the outer skin cells of thread-parasitic bacteria are relatively thick, these salts did not immediately have any visible effect on thread-parasitic bacteria. After a full half hour, the thread parasitic fungus showed a slight curling phenomenon due to lack of water.
However, this water shortage situation did not continue to worsen, and then Gun reminded the protagonist that the infected soldier ants also showed signs of dehydration.
Although the protagonist didn't know how to tell that the infected soldier ants were dehydrated, he was originally a half-baked ant and didn't understand a lot of knowledge, so it was more professional to go away.
It seems that these thread-parasitic bacteria are very tenacious and have begun to absorb large amounts of water from the host's body to cope with dehydration caused by salt.
In order to prevent endangering the lives of infected soldier ants, the protagonist can only ask the worker ants to move the salt grains away. Then the worker ants were fed some water to the infected soldier ants.
Although these soldier ants can no longer take the initiative to eat, when liquid drips on their mouthparts, they can still swallow instinctively, so that they will not die of thirst while sleeping.
Since salt is ineffective against thread-parasitic bacteria, the protagonist can only experiment with the efficacy of fire.
The fire was brought by the worker ants from the combustion chamber. They used a thin wooden stick wrapped in rosin to carry the small flame from the combustion chamber to here.
Because this torch is too small, the flame on the torch has been extinguished at this moment, leaving only a flickering char on the head of the torch. But such a stable dark fire comes in handy.
The protagonist personally picked up the smoldering torch and slowly brought the torch head closer to the infected soldier ant's back.
He must control the distance between the torch and his back, otherwise even the infected soldier ants may be burned.
The smoldering torch head still has a relatively high temperature. When it gets close to the mycelial larvae, the mycelial larvae seem to be in danger, twisting wildly, and some even want to crawl back into the host's body.
However, most of the mycelium larvae quickly dried up under the high temperature, were completely destroyed at the cellular level, and could no longer die.
The protagonist was overjoyed to see that high temperature had a miraculous effect on these tenacious thread-parasitic fungi. Although some mycelium larvae still hid in the bodies of infected soldier ants and could not be eradicated, at least there was a temporary solution and these legionnaires could save their lives. The probability is greatly increased.
The protagonist immediately taught the worker ants who brought the torch how to use the torch to kill the larvae of the thread-parasitic fungus, and how to control the distance to avoid seriously injuring the infected soldier ants.
After the worker ants mastered the technology, they started using it under the guidance of the protagonist. The visible hyphae on the backs of these legionnaires were quickly removed.
The protagonist peeled off the charred mycelium, and the remaining mycelium hidden in the flesh could still be seen through the cracks in the carapace. However, there was no way to completely remove these, and the protagonist was very satisfied with the current curative effect.
The protagonist ordered some worker ants to be dispatched to take care of these injured warriors. If the mycelium grows again, continue to use torches to heal the wounds. At the same time, they were told to feed them water and honeydew regularly to supplement their nutrition as much as possible.
As for the final fate of these infected warriors, the protagonist can only pray to the sky.
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After finishing the work of dealing with the injured, the protagonist started to deal with other things.
He first ordered all queen ants to lay one hundred male ant eggs as soon as possible.
Then the protagonist went to tell Rambo Fei to finish teaching the second batch of young male ants as soon as possible.
After the second batch of male ants graduates, the protagonist plans to hold a wedding flight ceremony for the first and second batches of male ants at the same time. After the ceremony, "Dongyang City" will have more than a hundred adult male ants.
If there is another war, "Dongyang City" will be able to dispatch more than 5,000 troops at a time, and its military strength will be greatly increased.
But at present, the wedding flight ceremony still lacks a very important resource - unmarried female ants.
