In this extremely important breeding experiment on parasitic ants, there is another point that the protagonist is very concerned about:
After cultivation, according to the cultivation method of "Dongyang City", the original parasitic ant's worker ant pupae were almost exactly the same as Xiaomi in body shape and appearance because they were not infected by the thread parasitic bacteria after breaking out of the pupae.
The intelligence level shown by Xiao Mi before was also far stronger than the ordinary worker ants and soldier ants of big-headed ants, which has always made the protagonist very strange.
He once thought that if all worker ants were as smart as Xiao Qing, then "Dongyang City" would develop faster. Because the relatively smart male ants are unwilling to engage in jobs other than military and political work due to their status, Xiaoqing is originally a worker ant, but there is no such obstacle based on status - the protagonist can only hand over some of his current technological research projects to Xiaoqing.
Now, experimental results have proven that Xiaoqing and parasitic ants are indeed inextricably linked. However, the protagonist has no intention of guarding against Xiao Qing. She has already proven her loyalty and ability before.
As for the specific origin of Xiao Qing, the protagonist can only guess that she is an unknowing member of the same species left behind by parasitic ants when they were lurking in "Dongyang City". The specific process needs to be unearthed with more evidence.
As for the pale gold worker ants and the big worker ants hatched this time, which have higher IQs, the protagonist naturally does not intend to accept them as commanders of the army like the parasitic ant nest. From the protagonist's perspective, it will be more important to add some students with high IQs to Xiaoqing's scientific research team.
As for the different development results of the three parasitic ants, the worker ants, the large workers, and the pale golden large workers, the protagonist has already made corresponding guesses - differences caused by congenital differences or acquired upbringing.
After having this guess, the protagonist immediately began to verify it. If the principle can be understood clearly, the protagonist believes that the idea of making every ant smarter will become a reality, and the development momentum brought by it is also obvious.
There are more queens in "Dongyang City" than in other sub-nests, and these queens are completely obedient to the protagonist.
Therefore, the protagonist ordered one of the queen ants to lay three eggs that would be cultivated into female ants and ten eggs that would develop into worker ants, and then placed these eggs in a nursery specially designed for experiments. Conservation worker ants take care of it.
The protagonist first carefully examined the differences between this batch of female ant eggs and worker ant eggs.
From the appearance point of view, there is no obvious difference between the two eggs. The size, shape and color are almost the same. The only difference is that the protagonist smells a special secretion on the female ant eggs.
The protagonist asked the nurse ants, and the nurse ants told the protagonist that only the ant eggs that will develop into female ants will have this secretion, but they do not know the specific composition and source of these secretions.
It seems that the protagonist can only ask the ant queens. He chose a relatively familiar queen ant. She was the young female ant who had fought side by side with Gun and eliminated a large worker ant. She was also Gun's choice for marriage after the wedding ceremony.
According to the customs of the big-headed ant and the rules set by the protagonist, after the wedding flight ceremony, the young female ant and Gun spent a night together in the newly built queen ant palace.
That night, the little female ant transformed into a queen ant, storing millions of sperm in her body, enough for her to produce offspring throughout her life.
In the world of big-headed ants, the little female ant and Gun are just a couple for one night. After that, Gun will continue to serve "Dongyang City" as the commander of the army and the protagonist's confidant, and the little female ant will also be a childbearer, staying in the underground space forever to give birth to children.
If there is no special reason, the little female ant and Gun will never meet again in this life. This is not a tragic love story, but the normal development process of ant society. From then on, the two ants who once became husband and wife overnight will devote their lives to the entire ant nest in their own way.
Among all the queen ants, the protagonist has only had some friendship with the female ants, so he did not hesitate to choose the female ants for communication.
Arriving at the queen's chamber, the once young female ant is now a mature and plump queen. According to the production plan, she regularly produces eggs of worker ants and soldier ants every day. "Dongyang City" has no plans to explode the population in the near future, so her current production task is not arduous, and it also gives the protagonist more time to have in-depth exchanges with her (no filth here).
The protagonist raised his own question. The former little female ant and now the queen ant thought about it and told the protagonist:
Queen ants do smear some of their own secretions on the eggs that will hatch into females, and female and worker eggs are actually the same.
She didn't know the reason for doing this, it was instinct teaching her to do this!
But she guessed (the queen's IQ is also very high, basically the same as the male ants) that these secretions can counteract the inhibitory hormones secreted by the queen.
Inhibitory hormone, a hormone secreted by the queen ant, can suppress the development of the reproductive organs and the production of egg cells in the entire nest of worker ants, ensuring the queen's exclusive reproductive rights.
Therefore, in some nests where the queen dies, due to the disappearance of inhibitory hormones, the reproductive organs of many worker ants will develop rapidly and begin to lay eggs. But because these worker ants have never mated, they can only lay unfertilized eggs, and the unfertilized eggs can only develop into male ants, which does not help the continuation of the entire ant nest. Therefore, biologists regard the presence of large numbers of male ants as a sign that a nest is about to decline. Ant breeders describe this situation as "mosquito infestation".
In an ant nest with multiple queens, although each queen is secreting inhibitory hormones, she is not affected by her own or other queens' inhibitory hormones. This is because each queen can also secrete an inhibitory hormone. anti-inhibitory hormones to protect themselves.
Similarly, in order to protect the eggs of female ants, they will also coat these eggs with their own anti-inhibitory hormones. Although worker ant eggs are physiologically identical to female ant eggs, they have been under the control of inhibitory hormones from the moment they are born.
After learning this result, the protagonist did not completely solve the mystery of the development of the giant worker ants and the pale gold worker ants.
Because the nurse ants have examined the newly adult large worker ants and the pale golden large worker ants, their reproductive organs are atrophied like ordinary worker ants, and are not as fully developed as female ants. It can be seen that the eggs of the giant worker ants and the pale gold worker ants should not be protected by anti-inhibitory hormones, and their different development results must be due to other reasons.
Since it is not the innate reason such as the difference in ant eggs, nor the reason of anti-suppressive hormones, then the protagonist naturally turns his attention to the way he is raised.
