Spring is coming very quickly.
After the warm and humid air from the south moved northward, the first spring rain brought vitality to the land that had been desolate for a long time. In just a few days, a large number of plants felt the breath of spring, began to wake up from dormancy, and competed to bloom green. of leaf buds.
Around the wet yellow wintersweet flowers with raindrops, there is a piece of new green everywhere. Whether they are trees or shrubs, they are doing their best to absorb water, grow, and compete for future sunshine and space.
As if to make up for the shortcomings of last year's disaster, or as a rebound after being suppressed by the cold winter, this year's spring appears to be extremely lush and vigorous in the eyes of the protagonist.
The pace of animals is only slightly behind the plants. Those insects that have successfully overwintered begin to leave the shelter where they have hidden all winter and eat greedily the food of the new year.
Those insects that cannot survive the winter also pass on their genes, and a large number of insect eggs buried underground, in dead leaves, deep in trees, and on the backs of branches begin their own life cycle.
A series of miraculous changes are taking place inside the insect eggs, from chaos to gradual formation, like a small universe growing, until the tiny larvae finally break out of their shells and usher in new life.
What emerges from most eggs is a fat, writhing worm that comes in a variety of shapes and colors:
Some are gray-headed and active on tree trunks or on the ground. If you don’t observe them carefully, you will be fooled by their protective colors.
Some, on the contrary, are extremely bright in color, with colorful and mottled patterns, and have burrs that are daunting to predators. They look poisonous and not easy to mess with. But this kind of protection does not work all the time. There are always some powerful predators who can avoid or ignore the burrs and toxins and enjoy the beautiful body of this protective subordinate.
The remaining worms have green, white, and yellow bodies that are soft, smooth, and without burrs. They hide on the plant leaves and eat like crazy, chewing holes in the intact leaves, and they can grow in size in just a few days. One circle, and after a while it starts to spin silk and form cocoons, starting a new life cycle.
Spider larvae are special. They don't look like caterpillars. They already have the appearance of adults as soon as they break out of their shells. They will gather into clumps, use the nutrients and energy stored in their bodies to shed their skin little by little, and will not start their hunting career until they reach adulthood.
Although wild aphids, like most insects, cannot survive the winter, they can only lay their eggs on dead leaves, weeds, stubble tubes, and soil cracks to overwinter.
But thanks to the shelter of ants, some adult aphids spent the winter in the warm ant nests. After spring, they were carried to nearby plants by the conscientious worker ants, where they began to suck plant juices and reproduce. .
These aphid larvae do not need to hatch from eggs, but are born directly from the abdomen. When they are born, they already look like small, crystal clear aphids, green and shining, as if they were carved from a whole piece of jade.
The worker ants who took care of the larvae took good care of the larvae. The lifespan of the adults was running out. After giving birth, these aphids would die soon, and the new generation of aphids would carry the "Dongyang City"'s desire for honeydew. Strong demand.
However, the herds in "Dongyangcheng" have encountered a lot of troubles recently. Perhaps this spring is too vigorous and too many kinds of arthropods are born. Some new carnivorous insects have begun to target delicious taste and quantity. A swarm of aphids that are numerous and lack the ability to defend themselves. Although the herdsmen and worker ants tried their best to defend themselves, they were unable to take full care of them.
The protagonist was rewarded, but he only regarded it as a small episode and did not pay attention to it - after all, "Dongyang City" is now full of things, and the protagonist is very busy, and it is difficult to spend too much time on various small things.
The joint ground training of the Beetle Legion has begun, and combat effectiveness will be formed in a short period of time.
The messengers to the north, "New Yancheng" and "Southern City" are already on their way, and they will bring back the most detailed and accurate information.
After a whole winter of consumption, "Dongyang City" is a little short of supplies and needs to hurry up and produce.
In the breeding farm, the eggs of mealworms and flies are already hatching, and batches of newly born larvae are feasting. They eat the corpses, garbage and other waste accumulated in the entire nest over the winter, so they can make the most of it. As a supplement, the ants will bring many fresh plants to replenish them with water and trace elements.
These plants come from farmland. After spring begins, sowing seeds becomes the task of farmer worker ants. They must first remove weeds in the farmland.
After a whole winter of idleness, some weed seeds brought to the farmland by wind, water or other factors also begin to germinate. The ants must clean them up in time to leave room for food crops to survive.
These weeds have just sprouted, and their stems, branches and leaves are still very delicate. The worker ants can easily cut them off with just their big jaws. If another week or two passes, the stems of some plants will become extremely tough and difficult to cut with pottery or stone knives, and a fire must be lit to clean them.
The cut buds and leaves not only supply feed to the farms, but are also seasonal vegetables for the ant nests. These fresh plants are easy to digest and ants will eat them raw - as omnivores, ants are not picky about food, and a rich variety of food is also beneficial to their health.
The protagonist's diet has recently grown a lot of plants, including roots, stems, leaves, buds, and petals. In addition to dipping honeydew in salads and eating them raw, the protagonist also often cooks these plant ingredients with seeds and dried meat, and adds a few grains of carefully selected salt to create a rare and delicious dish.
In addition to industries such as animal husbandry and planting that are slow to bear fruit, large numbers of ants are organized to gather and hunt in order to quickly increase food stocks.
The gathering team is mainly composed of worker ants. They sweep across an entire area in a group of hundreds, collecting all the food that is edible and easy to collect and bring back. Including: insect corpses, unhatched eggs, fungi, etc.
The hunting team is mainly composed of retired soldier ants and reserve soldier ants, with the help of many worker ants. They hunt in groups of fifty, and few insects can withstand the siege of such a large number of ants.
Whether it is a snail with a carapace, a slimy slug, a caterpillar with spines, or a ferocious stink bug, most of them will be doomed if they are targeted by ants.
If you encounter large prey, several teams can also cooperate.
However, the hunting team soon reported some situations, which attracted the protagonist's attention.
