After the protagonist returned to "Dongyang City", Rambo Fei rushed over immediately.
According to him, there was an important matter that needed to be reported to the protagonist just now, but the protagonist rushed to check the bee nest in excitement, and Lamborghini missed the opportunity.
It seems that Rambo Fei has been waiting for him at the entrance and exit of the lair for a long time, and the protagonist feels sorry for himself, so he quickly listens to his report.
After listening to the report, the protagonist's antennae shook a few times anxiously.
It turns out that the salt inventory in "Dongyang City" is insufficient, and it can even be said to have bottomed out.
There is a small amount of salt reserves in "Dongyang City". The protagonist knew before that when he grilled meat or cooked soup, he would also ask the worker ants to bring some salt. These are coarse salt particles of different sizes. In addition to salty taste, they also have a strong bitter taste. However, even if it tastes bitter, dishes with coarse salt are much more delicious than plain dishes. Especially since the protagonist is accustomed to human beings' high-salt diet, a meal cannot lack salt.
The protagonist had never thought about where the salt came from before, thinking that it was collected by "Dongyang City" itself. After all, some rock salt mines or saline-alkali land are still very common, and some plants also secrete salt, which are all natural sources of salt.
Like humans and other large animals, insects actually have a need for salt.
In people's intuition, it seems that ants prefer sweet foods. However, many scientific experiments have shown that if salt and sugar are placed in front of ants at the same time, many ants will choose salt.
A research project sponsored by the National Geographic Society and the Amazon Conservancy published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found that some ants are actually less fond of sugar and prefer salty food, at least when they live in This is true when you are away from the less salty areas of the ocean.
All animals, from ants to humans, need salt to maintain nerve and muscle mobility and water balance in their bodies.
Ants especially like to "grab" candy because they need energy. But the researchers speculated that the taste of ants would differ depending on where they are located, 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.
The Buffet Experiment provides 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 more obvious in herbivorous ants, because carnivorous ants can obtain a certain amount of salt from their prey. Similarly, herbivorous mammals such as cows and deer obtain salt by licking salty soil, while wolves and other carnivores obtain salt from bloody meals.
Many insects will look for sources of salt, such as using halosecreting plants. The root cells of these plants are highly permeable to salt, but the salt they absorb does not accumulate in the body, but passes through the densely distributed cells on the stems and leaves. Secretory glands excrete excess absorbed salt from the body.
There is a kind of salt tree in Northeast my country, whose scientific name is salt bark tree. The wood salt tree is generally two feet tall, with thick trunks and strong branches. Every summer, the trunks of the salt tree seem to be sweating from the heat. After the "sweat" evaporates, what is left is a layer of salt as white as snowflakes. After people discovered this secret, they used a knife to gently scrape off the salt and use it for cooking at home. .
Similar plants include Salicornia, which grows in the salt soil of northwest my country and North China. If its moisture is removed and burned to ashes, 45% of it will be various salts, while ordinary plants only have no more than 15% dry weight. % of salt. These plants concentrate the absorbed salt into the salt bubbles in their cells and prevent them from dispersing. Therefore, excessive salt will not harm the plants themselves, and they can still absorb water as if nothing has happened. Suaeda is also such a salt-gathering plant.
In the barren and arid saline-alkali land of northwest Argentina, there are many plants of the Chenopodiaceae family, which can absorb large amounts of salt from the soil. One hectare of Atriplexa can absorb 1 ton of salt-alkali per year.
Although there are many such salt-secreting plants, most inland areas still cannot obtain salt from plants. At this time, most organisms can only use natural salt mines.
Almost all the salt in the Big-headed Ant Kingdom comes from a sub-nest in the middle of the kingdom, let's call it "Salt City".
It is said that there is a salt-alkali swamp near "Yancheng", and there will be natural dried coarse salt particles on the edge of the swamp. The worker ants in "Yancheng" collect these coarse salts and then send them to various sub-nests.
Some neighboring sub-nests provide food for "Yancheng" to make up for the food shortage caused by the delay in foraging time for worker ants in "Yancheng".
This division of labor has a certain shadow of the distribution model under the planned economy, but it has always been effective.
However, recently, Lan Bofei discovered that the coarse salt delivered from "Yancheng" was getting less and less. Finally, the salt inventory in "Dongyang City" was about to bottom out.
Without salt, you may not see much impact on the surface, but Lamboffi said that if you don't eat salt for a long time, the king and king will no longer be full of wisdom, the queen ant will lay less eggs, the soldier ants will lose their strength, and the worker ants will also become... Gotta be lazy.
Ants always think that this is God punishing everyone, because eating salt is praying to God. If you don't eat salt, you can't get God's protection.
But the protagonist knows that this is actually the result of electrolyte imbalance in the body caused by long-term insufficient salt intake. The solution is simple, just keep eating salt.
But why did the originally stable salt supply suddenly have problems?
Lamboffi said that he had sent a messenger to "Yancheng" and got something in return.
The protagonist received these information packets, and then combined them with what he knew about the situation, and finally understood the cause and effect.
The reasons for the shortage of salt are very complex. Generally speaking, they include the following aspects:
First, the weather is not suitable. There have been frequent spring rains recently, and the water level in the salt-alkali swamps has risen, covering the saline-alkali land that was originally the tidal flat. There are fewer places where the ants can collect salt.
Secondly, because the main nest launched a war of recapture, but the frontline war was unfavorable, a large number of troops from each sub-nest began to be recruited. A large number of worker ants and soldier ants were also transferred from "Salt City", further weakening the salt production capacity.
Finally, due to the recent cold spring, bad weather and fierce competition for survival, fierce insect activities have become more frequent in various places.
The teams sent by "Yancheng" to transport salt often become the targets of these ferocious beasts, seriously affecting the salt supply of the entire Big-headed Ant Kingdom.
The crux of the problem was found. Rambo Fei looked at the protagonist expectantly. In his opinion, the God Envoy King was omnipotent, and eating salt, in the eyes of the ant, was related to the joy and anger of the God, so he should naturally pay attention to it. Let the King of Gods solve it.
Therefore, the protagonist can only rack his brains to solve the problem.
