Acquired factors boil down to nothing more than environment, food, education, etc.
Not to mention education, worker ants basically work based on instinct when they reach adulthood. There is no education for worker ants or soldier ants in "Dongyang City", and the protagonist believes that there will be no such education in parasitic ant nests. Therefore, acquired factors in education are eliminated first.
What about the environment? In terms of growth environment, different types of ant eggs, larvae or pupae are all cultivated in the same nursery, and there is no difference. Relatively speaking, female ant eggs are indeed protected by anti-inhibitory hormones, but this has no relationship with the different developmental outcomes of parasitic worker ant eggs.
Then, the only thing left that may affect development is food.
The protagonist asked the nurse ants, and sure enough, the nurse ants told the protagonist that when feeding female ants and worker ant larvae, they provide different food.
Ant society is very hierarchical, and there is also a strict hierarchy in food.
Male ants and female ants can enjoy plenty of honeydew, meat and other food, while worker ants and soldier ants can only enjoy very little meat, which is better than nothing honeydew. Their food is still abundant in grass seeds, fungi, etc. Mainly low-end plant foods.
The only exception is the nursery worker ants, who sometimes eat the same diet as the male and female ants. However, the reason for their preferential treatment is not compensation for their hard work.
Only when male or female ant larvae need to be fed, they will eat higher-grade food, and then feed back semi-digested food rich in nutrients such as protein and sugar from their stomachs for these larvae to eat. These foods are easier to digest and absorb. , like "milk" for the larvae.
If only the larvae of ordinary worker ants and soldier ants are fed, the nursery worker ants will stop eating higher-end food and only eat ordinary food. The nutrition they feed back to their young is relatively simple.
The protagonist carefully inquired about the types of the two foods and compared them. He found that the composition of high-grade food (the food fed to the larvae of male and female ants) was more complex, relatively rich in fat, protein and amino acids, while the ordinary food (the food fed to the larvae of worker ants and soldier ants) had less Protein and amino acids can only ensure adequate calorie supply.
It seems that the nutritional value of the two foods is indeed different. Is this the reason the protagonist is looking for?
Since all the captured parasitic ant eggs, young ants, and ant pupae have reached adulthood except for the dead ones, the protagonist cannot conduct experiments with the offspring of these parasitic ants. So he asked the queen to lay a hundred more worker eggs, intending to test them with ordinary worker eggs.
The one hundred worker ant eggs were quickly transported to the experimental nursery.
The protagonist divided the ant eggs into five groups, with twenty ant eggs in each group, and placed them in different nursery nest rooms. Four nursery worker ants were allocated to each nest room to take care of them - this care is much higher than that of ordinary nursery ants. Baby room.
During the few days waiting for the ant eggs to hatch, the protagonist, after careful inspection and observation, confirmed that the offspring of the parasitic ants did not pose any threat, and they all regarded themselves as members of "Dongyang City".
Therefore, the protagonist decided to make full use of their talents and made arrangements for them.
Most of the ordinary parasitic worker ants are no different from the ordinary worker ants in "Dongyang City". They are assigned to the positions that each worker ant should go to. However, there was a red mark on their foreheads stained by minerals that was not allowed to be wiped off.
The big worker ants and the pale gold worker ants have superior intelligence. The protagonist asks the little secretary (the little secret should be a big worker ant) to lead them to familiarize themselves with the existing technologies-pottery making, construction, breeding, etc., and they will be used as various workers in the future. To train technical personnel in the industry.
A few days later, the worker ant eggs in the experimental nursery hatched one after another.
The protagonist numbers the five nurseries as laboratories No. 1 to No. 5.
For Laboratory No. 1, culture was still carried out as usual, and the nursery workers only provided ordinary food to the young ants.
Laboratory No. 2 provides 25% high-end food and 75% ordinary food. Laboratory No. 3 provides 50% high-end food and 50% ordinary food. Laboratory No. 4 provides 75% high-end food and 25% ordinary food. Laboratory No. only serves premium food.
When the conservation worker ants heard that these ordinary worker ants would be provided with high-end food, the feedback was overwhelming. In their view, high-end food requires consuming more and scarcer food reserves in the nest, and feeding ordinary worker ants is very wasteful.
The protagonist is not worried. The food in "Dongyang City" is relatively abundant now. After the establishment of a large-scale mealworm and fly maggot breeding farm, there is basically no shortage of meat. After a batch of scale insects were looted from the vicinity of the parasitic ant nest, Honey sources have also expanded. With these sufficient material guarantees, not only is it enough to support this experiment, but it will also be more than enough to support hundreds of worker ants who need to enjoy the treatment of kings or queens in the future.
When it comes to protecting worker ants, the protagonist doesn't need to be as careful as he does when dealing with a king who has objections. Once he gives an order, the nursery ants can only obey it obediently. There will be no complaints and there is no need to worry about them disobeying the order.
In this way, after being fed according to the food ratio determined by the protagonist for a while, some changes gradually appeared in the young ants fed in the nurseries No. 2 to 5.
Taking the ordinary worker ant larvae in nursery No. 1 as a comparison, the larvae in nurseries No. 2 to 5 are all one size larger. In terms of body size alone, the size of the babies in nurseries No. 3, 4, and 5 are all very different, while the babies in nursery No. 2 are slightly smaller than those in the other three nurseries.
In addition, in nurseries No. 4 and 5, a faint golden sheen appeared on the body surface of the larvae, but this did not appear in nurseries No. 2 and 3.
After learning about this situation, the protagonist was very happy. The enlarged size and golden body surface are exactly the external characteristics of the large worker ants and the pale golden large worker ants in the parasitic ant nest. If these young ants show higher intelligence as adults, then the experiment will be considered a success.
Under the protagonist's order, the number of nurse ants in each nursery room No. 2 to No. 5 doubled again, taking care of these precious young ants meticulously.
The Second Legion of the Divine Envoy King stationed here, under the leadership of Commander Lambov, built a small fortress at the entrance to enhance its defense capabilities.
The materials in "Dongyang City", whether it is honey dew, insect meat or grass seeds, are all open to the laboratory for unlimited supply.
The importance that the protagonist attaches to this experiment is obvious to all in "Dongyang City". Although Gun, Rambo Fei and others still do not understand the significance of the experiment, they also pay attention to it. In the exchanges between different kings, there are more and more contents about this experiment.
The ants with keen senses all sensed that a huge revolution was coming.
