The Angel King's Legion has already had breeding industries (mealworms, fly maggots and bees), grazing industries (aphids and scale insects) and planting industries (all kinds of grass seeds), and has been able to obtain much more food than gathering and hunting. , tasted the sweetness of primitive agriculture.
Although the original agricultural and animal husbandry industries have been abandoned because they are now forced to stay away from their homeland, the reconstruction of these original agricultural and animal husbandry economies has begun in the swamp areas.
Even the walnut fleet takes up a lot of cabin capacity to accommodate various insect eggs and plant seeds as backup. Relying on these eggs and seeds, the walnut fleet can even replicate the original agriculture and animal husbandry industry in any suitable place.
The leafcutter ants' fungus farming is completely different from the previous agricultural model of the Angel King. What is needed is some fresh plant flowers and leaves, which will not rob the resources needed by other industries, and can even use the normal grass seeds in the farmland. Metabolized flowers and leaves as raw materials.
The fungi produced can also enrich the diet of the Angel King's legion, providing an additional way to produce food and expanding food sources, so that crises will not arise due to a single food.
This is what makes the protagonist's heart beat.
The boat was moving slowly, preparing to anchor in a nearby tree, and the protagonist took the opportunity to take a good look at the Bachie ant colony.
Judging from the large number of working ants outdoors, this Bachie ant colony has at least 20,000 ant colonies.
Such a large-scale ant colony is as huge as the protagonist had previously speculated. It is obviously not something that the warriors of the God Envoy King currently on the walnut fleet can match.
No matter how much the protagonist wants to conquer this race, he is not so crazy-minded that he plans to attack by force. His goal is only to capture the opponent's queen ant, or capture at least one queen ant egg, and preferably a batch of worker ant eggs. There are many ways to achieve this limited goal, and it is not necessary to completely conquer and eliminate the kingdom of Bachie ants. For example, stealing a few eggs is much less difficult.
Based on the actions of Bachie ant workers, the protagonist speculates that the balls made of leaves are the farmland where they cultivate fungi. The worker ants will transport the collected leaves into them, and those tree holes are their real nest.
The leaves collected by Bachie ants are not the leaves of the ash tree where they live, but the leaves of some nearby ash trees. Apparently they also realize that collecting leaves is harmful to the population, and they will protect them as much as possible. He prefers trees he considers his nest and goes to great lengths to collect leaves from other ash trees.
As for the leaves of Metasequoia and Metasequoia, they are not suitable, and I have not seen any leaf cutter ants collecting them.
But to make leaf balls, you must use local ash leaves. The protagonist observed the whole process of making a leaf ball.
It was next to an almost completely withered leaf ball, and the worker ants inside kept pouring out, then climbed up the nearby leaves and started working.
These Bachie ants are connected to each other, like a thread, draping over two adjacent leaves, and then pulling the two leaves together.
Another worker ant came over with white young ants in its mouth, and slapped the young ants with its tentacles, causing the young ants to secrete formic glue, which "sewed" the two leaves together.
Bachie ants used four adjacent leaves to "sew" a semi-finished hemispherical bowl, which can also be regarded as the top base. There are no other leaves nearby that can be pulled directly. These Bachie ants cut off entire large leaves from other places, then worked together to lift them and sew them together to complete the lower half of the leaf ball.
Soon a complete spherical body began to take shape. A small hole will be chewed into the top of the leaf ball for the leaf cutter ants to enter and exit. Just an hour later, a leaf ball slightly larger than the ocean ball was completed.
The protagonist also understands that the size of these leaf balls depends on their top base, and the size of the top base depends on the number and size of the natural leaves at this location on the branch. No wonder these leaf balls are of different sizes.
After completing the new leaf ball, I put the chopped fresh leaves into it, and I don't know what I was tinkering with inside.
Then after a while, the leaf cutter ants began to transport the white fungi like mycelium on moldy tofu from the old leaf balls again, just like transporting small balls of cotton. .
Afterwards, the Bachie ants bit off the petioles of the three leaves on the top of the old leaf ball. The old leaf ball fell into the water with a "snap" and floated intact on the water, drifting with the current without sinking.
At this time, the walnut fleet has stopped sailing on a metasequoia, and the old leaf ball that fell into the water is slowly drifting here.
About an hour later, the sun was setting in the west, and after the protagonist had finalized the details of tonight's "egg-stealing operation", the old leaf ball happened to float over and hit the walnut boat.
The protagonist led the guard team to climb up the old leaf ball, preparing to inspect the leaf ball.
The protagonist does not know that in fact, Bachie leaf ants usually nest on the ground, and fungus farms are also underground, and there is no habit of building leaf ball farms on trees. But weaver ants in the tropics behave similarly, building leaf nests out of leaves and the glue secreted by their young. I don’t know if the Bachie ants here evolved like this in order to adapt to the environment of the water forest.
The protagonist climbed onto the old leaf nest. The leaves on the surface were completely withered, but they still retained moisture, and there were no big gaps in the joints of the leaves.
He took a few guardsmen and got in through the entrance of the Bachie ants. It was pitch black inside, with only the faint light coming from the gaps and holes.
But the protagonist's vision was hardly affected. He looked around and saw that it was almost empty inside. There were some mycelium remnants on the walls, not just the white fungi that the Bachie ants had moved away before, but also some other colors. Miscellaneous bacteria.
The bottom of the leaf ball has already received water, quite a bit, but the leaf ball itself is very light and still floats without sinking.
Through the thin layer of water, you can see the remaining culture medium at the bottom of the leaf ball, which is so dark and sticky that the material is almost invisible. But getting closer, the protagonist looked carefully and couldn't help but feel a little nauseous.
Mixed in the dark culture medium were some corpses, including those of insects and ants. It seemed that ants would even use the corpses of their companions to cultivate fungi. The corpses had turned dark, as if they had fallen into asphalt.
Although it is a bit disgusting, the Angel King Legion can also use some useless prey or livestock carcasses to cultivate fungi in the future. As for the corpses of the soldiers of the God's Envoy King, obviously they cannot be treated in this way. After all, there is already a certain sense of funeral in the God's Envoy King's army and they cannot desecrate the deceased.
Let the guards collect some white edible fungus mycelium and bring it back to the cabin for storage. The protagonist leaves the old leaf ball and beats it with a wooden stick.
