The open saline-alkali land is dotted with brown soil dotted with white crystals and scattered dry weeds. This is a seemingly desolate but vibrant place, a place that appears to be full of vitality but hides murderous intent.
On this hunting ground chosen by the ants, a spectacular hunting battle is taking place in the microscopic world.
The attackers were ants. They were like a pack of wolves, launching a ferocious siege, while the besieged earthworms were in pain and tried their best to resist.
This is a battle between wolves and dragons, a duel of life and death, and a show that nature performs every day.
From a distance, you can see that the ants are crawling all over the earthworm's body, and their large jaws are piercing the earthworm's skin and flesh, cutting the muscles and nerves inside.
Although the earthworm has no eyes, it already felt something bad when it was attacked for the first time. Although it does not have sharp jaws, poisons, stinging needles and other deadly weapons, it is by no means helpless.
Earthworms are covered in mucus, and these viscous body fluids serve as a good protective layer.
The mucus comes from the secretions of the earthworm itself. The body wall of earthworms is composed of cuticle, epithelium, circular muscle layer, longitudinal muscle layer and coelomic epithelium. The outermost layer is a single layer of columnar epithelial cells, and the secretions of these cells form the corneal membrane. This membrane is extremely thin, composed of collagen fibers and non-fibrous layers, and has small holes. Columnar epithelial cells are interspersed with glandular cells and are divided into mucous cells and protein cells.
Mucus secreted by mucus cells usually functions to moisturize the body surface. When earthworms encounter severe stimulation, mucus cells secrete a large amount of mucus and wrap the body into a mucus membrane, which also has a protective effect.
Many ants have their six limbs stuck in the mucus membrane and have to expend a lot of precious energy to struggle, temporarily unable to think about launching an attack.
Earthworms are huge in size and have strong resistance to blows due to their special physiological structure. A large number of ants are firmly nailed to its huge body, biting countless wounds of various sizes, but it is difficult for the earthworm to seriously injure it.
The earthworm's counterattack began, and its body was its biggest weapon. I saw the earthworm begin to roll and struggle violently, sometimes twisting into a ball like a twist, and sometimes its body stretched like a rapidly extending spring. Its movements were changeable and extremely fast, not at all like its usual slow and clumsy crawling. state.
In the crazy rolling and twisting of the earthworms, many ants were thrown out, but they were not injured and quickly joined the battle group.
The hunting has reached a deadlock. The ants cannot kill the prey quickly, and the resistance of the earthworms cannot make this group of ferocious hunters give up or cause casualties.
Time passed slowly, and the advantage was tilted to the ant's side.
Compared with earthworms, ants have better endurance and are more adaptable to this kind of long-term tug-of-war. During the battle, the earthworm's crazy resistance consumed a lot of energy, and its movements began to become slow and stiff.
As time passed, the earthworm began to slowly stop resisting, and with a predator all over it, it endured the pain and began to move. It crawled toward the grass not far away, where there was relatively moist and soft soil. It wanted to get into the soil to avoid these terrible ants.
The ants are naturally unwilling to let their prey escape, but no matter how they attack, they cannot stop the movement of the earthworms.
Some soldier ants and worker ants crawled down to the ground, biting the earthworm's skin with their mandibles, and using all six limbs to stop the earthworm's progress. The ants are very powerful, but in front of the earthworms, which have an absolute advantage in size and weight, the strength of dozens of ants is still at a disadvantage and cannot stop the earthworms from continuing to move forward.
Some older soldier ants crawled back and forth on the earthworm's back, trying to find its weak points. They attacked the head and tail of the earthworm, but there was no weakness in the earthworm's appearance. Apart from the pain that made it slightly faster, the attacks of the older soldier ants had no effect.
Nobita follows closely behind the earthworm. As a male ant, he does not need to participate in the battle and his own combat effectiveness is also very weak. But seeing the prey escaping little by little, he was very anxious but could do nothing.
It was the soldier ants and worker ants in the hunting team who found the solution on their own. This is a hunting tactic imprinted deep in the genes through hundreds of millions of years of genetic evolution.
As the ants began to shift their targets, there were more and more wounds on the earthworm's body. The soldier ants concentrated on attacking its middle part. The skin and flesh were lifted here, and the ring-shaped muscle layer inside was exposed. The ants continued to cut the muscles. Deep into the internal organs, the intestines, nerves and other tissues of the earthworm are exposed to the air.
As if performing a surgical operation, the ants use their sharp jaws to dismember the earthworms alive bit by bit. This is the most primitive tactic and the most effective tactic.
A lot of the earthworm's nerves were severed, and there was a problem with the nerve connection between its head and tail. Although the injury was not fatal, even if it was completely broken into two parts, the two parts would survive separately.
But the current situation that is about to end is indeed the most unfavorable situation for earthworms.
Since the nerves were cut off, the nerve tissue in the back of its body took over the control of the back half of the body, while the front half of the body was still controlled by the original brain tissue and other nerves in the head.
While the front half of the body was still executing its previous escape plan, it was crawling towards the grass. But the rear part of its body felt the pain coming from the front, and it instinctively wanted to escape backwards.
The two bodies that are still connected have different "consciousness" and behaviors because the nerves are separated. Now the two halves of the body are in a tug-of-war with themselves, exerting force on each other in opposite directions. Not only is it difficult to move, but it also intensifies the tension between them. Broken part of the wound.
The ants also had a hard time. The mucus secreted by the earthworms increased greatly after being injured. Many fighting ants had to temporarily leave the battlefield and call their companions to clean up the mucus. This mucus not only affects movement, but sometimes also blocks the stomata. Once the mucus is not cleaned up before it dries, it may cause the ant hunter to suffocate and die.
The battle between the hunter and the prey lasted for a full hour or two. The earthworm finally broke into two parts. After getting rid of the burden, the front part fled crazily into the distance.
The ants did not chase. They concentrated on attacking the second half. This half was more seriously injured and could no longer move much.
This half of the prey was finally obtained. Although half of it was missing, the meat was still rich enough, so it was considered a good harvest.
The ants began to cut the body of the earthworm, cutting it into small pieces bit by bit while it was still alive, and then a group of several ants moved the mountain-like piece of meat away.
Nobita's biological clock told him that because hunting took too long, it was too late to return to "Dongyang City".
As a result, the hunting team began to move to the transfer station not far away, preparing to spend the night there and transport the harvest back to the nest tomorrow.
