The protagonist heard the news and saw a few small things attached to a rope that the ants fished out of the water.
These things have green and black patterned round-pointed hard shells, and soft bodies extending out of the shells. If you look closely, aren't they exactly the same as the medium-sized snails you saw on the sandbank before? It's just that it's much smaller, only as big as the head of a big-headed ant worker ant.
These mini snails are attached to the rope, completely unaware of the current awareness, and are still destroying the rope. Their soft bodies bulged together, and soon a rope fiber was cut at a speed visible to the naked eye.
It turns out that these mini-snails are the larvae of the medium-sized snails on the sandbar. When the walnut fleet anchored on the sandbar, the mini-snails drifted away with the current, and some attached to the hull.
These mini snails have inherited the gluttonous characteristics of adults and are not picky eaters at all. Although they cannot eat walnut shells, after discovering that the ropes of the walnut boat are made of plant fiber and protein ant silk and are edible, these mini snails use this method. They eat and grow bigger and bigger.
After discovering the culprit that caused the rope to break, we naturally had to find a way to kill them, and we couldn't let them continue to destroy them.
Throughout the afternoon, hundreds of sailor ants pulled almost all the ropes out of the water to inspect them, and found dozens of mini snails. These mini snails were not wasted. The only bit of meat was dug out and used as food to reward the sailor ants. The size of the mini snail shells was very suitable for male ants to use as wine glasses, so they were saved by the protagonist.
But not all the mini-snails were killed. There were still a small number of mini-snails attached to the underwater hull of the walnut boat. Some of them could be seen with the naked eye, but the ants who lacked tools were unable to eliminate these stubborn snails.
In addition, after inspection by Sailor Ant, the damage to the ropes was more serious than previously estimated. There were no problems visible on the surface of many underwater ropes. Once pulled out of the water, it was found that half of the ropes had been broken. The rope parts of the entire fleet needed to be repaired. Thorough inspection and overhaul.
If it is necessary to conduct a thorough inspection and overhaul, it is difficult to complete it in a drifting state, and the risk is very high. It is best to tow it ashore and overhaul it on land, or at least have a stable anchorage.
Although the protagonist does not want to delay the trip, it has been a full week since the departure of the route. The protagonist is worried about changes over time and has always wanted to return to the swamp as soon as possible.
However, the overhaul was related to navigation safety, and the protagonist did not dare to neglect it. He could only order the sails to be fully set. With the help of weak wind, the fleet moved to the east bank of Qinghe River in the evening.
There is a huge forest on the shore here. In the dim light of dusk, the forest looks like a huge shadow. When they got closer, the protagonist could clearly see that there were metasequoia, water pine, ash, willow and other trees growing in this forest.
At this time, due to the swollen river, the large woods near the river were submerged in the water, and the ground could not be seen. However, these water-loving plants are still growing well and show no signs of wilting due to being soaked in water for a long time every year. They are worthy of the word "water" in their names.
The walnut fleet approached the forest with the wind, and then lightly collided with a Japanese pine tree on the outskirts, without causing any damage.
The ants hurriedly used ropes to secure the slowly drifting fleet to the swollen lower trunk of the cork tree, and the fleet was finally anchored successfully.
It was already dark at this time, which was not suitable for the ants to move outside. After the ants fixed the fleet, they continued to spend the night on the boat!
——I am the dividing line——
The next day, as soon as it got light, the ants began to be busy inspecting and overhauling.
All the ropes in the fleet were pulled out of the water and carefully inspected. Damaged areas were repaired with ant glue and fiber. Those that were particularly damaged had to be removed and replaced with new ones.
Because this repair was carried out on the water instead of in a dry environment on the shore, it was very difficult and the ants were not very efficient. It was estimated that it would take three days for a hundred sailor ants to complete the work.
And because the working area is limited, the ants cannot increase their ant hands to speed up.
There is also a group of ants responsible for continuing to clean up the mini-snails. They use long wooden sticks to pick off the visible mini-snails closer to the water and let them roll away from the fleet.
In addition to these two groups of ants, many ants climbed up the tree and were ordered to search for food.
There are about five days of food reserves left on the ship. Considering that they will be anchored here for three days, the ants must search for food and necessary supplies in the woods to replenish the deficit in the cabin and sustain the rest of the journey.
The river flooded the ground, and the ants could only move around in the trees. Fortunately, the vegetation here was dense, and the branches were criss-crossed. There were also a large number of vines climbing on the trees, and even connecting them into bridges, which together formed a suspended road. net.
There are abundant supplies in the woods in early summer. For a species like ants, which are not picky eaters, there is really a lot of food to be found.
There was no food on the pine trees where the boat was anchored, but on a nearby ash tree, the ants found many brown-helmed wax scales. This is a yellow-brown bug about half a centimeter in size, with an oval or round shape with a raised back, like a brown helmet buckled on the ground.
Brown-helmeted wax scales have large shells but little meat and are not tasty, but their colorless mucus-like droppings have a faint sweet taste, similar to the honeydew excreted by aphids, but not as sweet as aphid honeydew.
These slime ants can suck it, and it can also attract flies to lick it. The ants took the opportunity to capture several fly prey. Some mucus may grow mold over time, and these molds are also edible.
After the protagonist learned about it, he felt that this newly discovered insect was very useful, so he asked the ants to collect some eggs of the brown wax scale and brought them to the cabin for storage.
Another metasequoia is even richer in food.
The soft, succulent larvae of the coffee beetle moth can be found inside the trunks of metasequoia trees. The coffee beetle moth is a very beautiful black and white moth, as cute as a panda. The larvae are as big as a two-segmented peanut and reddish brown. The most eye-catching thing is that there is a nearly rectangular dark brown spot on the front edge of the pronotum.
On the leaves of Metasequoia, there are rose sawfly larvae feeding in groups. The larvae are very eye-catching yellow-green, with a reddish-brown head and black rump. The colors are very rich and bright.
There are also a large number of small green leafhopper larvae on the trunk, less than half a centimeter in length, their whole body is as green as emerald, and they look like elongated aphids.
These bugs on the metasequoia are good prey, giving the ants a bumper harvest.
In addition to food, the ants also found some useful supplies. For example, the dry skin of some rattans was torn off to produce suitable fiber materials, which just replenished the fiber and rope inventory in the cabin.
This forest is rich in materials, making the protagonist feel that he has entered a treasure land, and his mood has improved since the voyage was delayed due to the need for repairs.
