At this time, the protagonist is thinking about things in the past life. After traveling into an ant, some of the protagonist's memories of the past life are blurred, but some memories are particularly clear under some special circumstances.
It was the summer vacation when I was young in my previous life. Think about that age, when I was still in school, I didn’t have to worry about marriage, family, income, house, or car. The only worries were being called parents by teachers for being naughty, and after each exam when the results were announced. That "lesson". What a carefree childhood.
Every summer vacation, I always go to my grandfather's house in the countryside to stay for a few days. I still remember that summer nights living in the countryside are actually a very comfortable pastime. You can enjoy the cool breeze and look up at the smog-free night sky, where the Milky Way is dotted with stars. Experience the pastoral scenery like never before in the city.
While sitting on the bank of the river enjoying the coolness, enjoying the coolness given by nature, occasionally there will be some unexpected surprises.
On this day, suddenly a green meteor slipped from the eyes. Before the little protagonist could make a wish on the meteor, he heard a "plop" and the meteor fell into the water.
So the little protagonist quickly lowered his head to check, only to discover that the meteor just now was a big praying mantis, which was flapping its claws and wings on the water with its big belly.
Could it be that the summer is too hot and this mantis wants to go into the water to cool off? The little protagonist watched curiously, but soon, the little protagonist suddenly stretched out a small black end from the tail of the mantis, and this small end continued to extend outwards, and after a while it turned into a black twisting little end. branches.
The dying mantis twisted its body in pain, and the black branches continued to flow out of the mantis' tail, and after a while it turned into a small black rope. The rope twisted its body stiffly, pulling itself toward the mantis's body while swimming under the water.
Finally, the rope completely fell off the mantis' body, and its length was several times longer than the mantis's body length. It still twisted its body vigorously and swam quickly to the bottom of the water, as if there was something there that was attracting it. The mantis had become stiff and lifeless, and slowly sank into the water.
The protagonist looked at the departing figure of an earthworm, a snake, or some other ghost in front of him, and felt numb in his heart.
The grandfather next to him told him that this was called an iron worm. This was the first time the protagonist knew about this disgusting, cruel and strange species.
The insect-loving grandfather taught the young protagonist a lot about insects in the countryside and cultivated the protagonist's thirst for knowledge. Unexpectedly, such an amateur hobby has now become an important guarantee for the protagonist's survival as an ant.
The protagonist knows that the most common hosts of iron worms are large arthropods, including praying mantises, cockroaches, etc., as well as locusts.
When an arthropod is infected with the parasite during its nymphal stage, the parasite accompanies the host throughout its life until death.
After the ironworm larvae parasitizes into the host's body, it will further develop and release a large amount of chemical substances, making the host always feel that it is not full. It keeps going through the process of "eating, eating, eating", without knowing that most of the energy it eats has actually been absorbed. Seized by parasites.
When they grow up, the body length of ironworms is usually much longer than that of the host, so they will curl up and shrink into the abdomen of the host. This is why some parasitic mantises and locusts have abdominal They are surprisingly large because there is an iron worm curled up inside them.
The even more frightening fact is that in fact, there is often not only one iron worm inside a host, but several worms can often be seen crowded together inside the host, so one can imagine the pain the host suffers.
When the iron worms in the host develop to a certain extent, the worms need to leave the host and return to the embrace of rivers or seas. At this time, they will release chemicals to make the host extremely thirsty, so the host will go to find water by itself.
When the host finds a water source, the iron worm will emerge from the host's tail little by little, and finally dive into the water to continue the rest of its life.
When the iron worms in the host body leave, its life has basically come to an end, and it can go away without having to endure the pain caused by the parasite.
In fact, iron worms do not deliberately kill the host. Even during the parasitism process, they only absorb the host's nutrients and make the host feel uncomfortable, but will not endanger the host's life. However, when the iron worm emerges from the host's tail little by little, its rough movements will severely damage the host's internal organs, so the host in this case generally does not live long.
But occasionally there are cases of survival. If the surviving host can live normally as before, it can barely survive and reproduce in the future, but such lucky people are rare.
If the host does not find a water source, the iron worms that are supposed to come out will also come out. However, the habits of the iron worms are that they like cold and damp and cannot tolerate dryness, so they will be dried to death soon after leaving the water source.
There are also theories that the iron worm does not actually make the host feel thirsty, but releases proteins in the host's body so that it likes to jump from high altitudes to low places, and low places are often places with water bodies such as rivers, so it causes There is an illusion that mantises infected with iron worms like water.
This time, the iron worms found in "Dongyang City" were obviously infected with locusts. The locusts were killed by the Divine Envoy King's army, and their bodies were transported to the rear warehouse.
This locust is larger in size and has mature iron worms in its body. It should have waited until the locust has matured before driving the host to find water sources.
However, the parasitic iron worms keenly sensed the death of their host. They could no longer get energy and safe shelter from the host, so these parasites hurriedly got out, only to be seen by the ants in "Dongyang City".
This happened to more than one locust, and many locusts had iron worms emerging from their bodies. There were about dozens of them in total.
There is no water source near "Dongyang City", and these iron worms cannot survive for long. In order to carry out the most important thing in their lives - reproduction, the iron worms that emerged from the locust's body began to move to the sunny and shaded areas. There are more than a dozen of them in total. The wireworms successfully arrived at their destination and began mating in a slightly damp depression. Successful females retain fertilized eggs, and unsuccessful females can also undergo parthenogenesis.
In this way, before the adult worms die quickly, they leave thousands of eggs to the protagonist.
These eggs originally had to endure heavy summer rains to form puddles before they could hatch and find a host.
But now, the protagonist has an idea - these eggs are his sharpest weapon against locusts.
