In September, when [Pioneer City] on the south bank of the Qinghe River was busy, there was a different scene in the north of the Ant United Kingdom.
This is the northern territory of the former red imported fire ant kingdom, now a newly conquered territory of the leaf-cutter ant kingdom. The vegetation is lush and there are many insects and few ants.
The fire ant nests that once dotted the earth have now been reduced to ruins, and the remaining underground nests are either awkward due to lack of maintenance, or are occupied by magpie nests of other insects. On the ground, where hundreds of thousands of ants were once busy, ants are now hard to find.
Compared with the size of the original colony of red imported fire ants, the leafcutter ant colony that now occupies this area has only left tens of thousands of ant immigrants in the area.
There are so few ants that cannot fill the vast land. What's more, the immigrants of leafcutter ants mainly gather in areas with dense trees in the north. They are busy growing self-sufficient food while germinating and planting tree species transported hundreds of miles from the mainland, gradually expanding the area of the forest. .
These leafcutter ants have no time to pay attention to what is happening a little far away from their nests.
Therefore, at this time, most of the northern territory of the original red fire ant country was actually in a state of ownerlessness.
Some of the former neighbors of the red fire ant country, some not-so-powerful barbaric ant tribes, began to take the opportunity to expand here, quietly occupying more living space while the new owners had no time to care.
But they have no desire to offend the leaf-cutting ant nation. Under the former lustful power of the red fire ant nation, these tribes who were lucky enough not to be conquered or reduced to vassals all have a speculative survival philosophy.
Apart from these sneaky neighbors, the most indispensable thing on this land is uninvited guests.
A small group of beautiful butterflies descended from Gaoming one after another and landed in a small bush to rest temporarily.
There are some ripe fruits that have fallen to the ground on the ground of this bush. Most of them are rotten, and some of them have worms growing in them.
These butterflies did not dislike it. They were targeting these things. They immediately surrounded these rotten fruits, put down their rolled-up mouthparts, and sucked the ripe juice to replenish their energy.
The drunk butterflies returned to the branches of the shrubs, warming themselves up to the warm sun that had set in the west, preparing to continue their journey after spending the night here.
These are monarch butterflies. As the name suggests, their wings have patches of golden-red color separated by black edges.
This beautiful butterfly, which is about the size of a small poplar leaf or the size of a child's palm, is an expert in long-distance migration. It is said that some groups can migrate 5,000 kilometers, and they are as good at flying as locusts.
It is September and autumn, although it is still warm in this land, and even the autumn tiger is still exuding a power that is not inferior to that of summer.
But further north, the first cold wave has announced the arrival of winter in the new year, and the climax of aggression that comes at the same time as winter will once again come unstoppably to new and old ants. On the clan!
Destroyers, their offensive reaches a new climax every winter.
This is not to say that the Destroyer does not launch attacks except in winter, but in spring, summer and autumn, other ants can avoid the passive situation of being unable to go out in winter, and can organize resistance to some extent.
Some powerful countries with vast territories and numerous ant colonies were able to withstand the Destroyer's day and night offensives for three full seasons, and even took the opportunity to counterattack.
But every time winter comes, it is the home field of the destroyers. Even every winter, new varieties of destroyers appear, making it difficult for their opponents to guard against them.
Winter and the destroyer of winter are a pair of powerful enemies that all ant tribes fear.
Monarch butterflies will not pay attention to the turbulent war in the ant world. Unless they are unfortunately injured or exhausted and fall into the ant mouth, it is difficult for any ant family to threaten them that can fly for a long time.
What scares them is not the destroyer that comes with winter, but winter itself!
This small group of monarch butterflies is the first group of butterflies to migrate from their hometown in the north. However, due to climate and wind this year, they have deviated from their original route and are flying in a strange land. They can only fly according to their natural instincts. With a sense of direction, I continued to fly south, hoping to reach a wintering place that would not freeze in winter.
There were originally thousands of monarch butterflies, but at this time, less than half of them had landed to rest and were still able to move and eat. However, in this bush, they were still densely packed, covering all the branches.
And there are not just butterflies in this bush.
Under the fallen leaves, several rat women were digging furtively into the moist soil. Near their heads, a huge millipede crawled leisurely. The dense footsteps made the timid rat woman automatically stop and wait patiently for it to go away before daring to continue moving.
On the shrub, next to the butterfly, a dark metallic kowtow beetle was holding a ripe fruit and feasting on it. Beneath it, in a clump of grass, a cone-headed locust is peeping, waiting for night to come and start its courtship call on time, even though it has missed the best mating season and is destined to be unable to wait for a mate.
In addition to these common bugs, there is a group of ants with a mission peeking out from the cracks in the rocks where the monarch butterfly cannot see.
The number of these ants is very small, only about twenty, but they are not weak.
Led by a red imported fire ant male, the team was guarded by 12 strong red imported fire ant warriors. In addition, there were 1 burrowing ant male, 1 abdominal ant male, 6 burrowing ants and 6 Only the abdominal ant warriors are mentioned.
This is an elite mixed force. If it were the old fire ant country era, it would not be surprising for such a team to be hundreds of times larger, but why do they appear in this "fallen" land now? ?
The mixed team of fire ants huddled underground throughout the day. Although they had been in the country for many days, and through frequent ground reconnaissance, they had found that leaf-cutter ants rarely set foot here, but they did not dare to be careless at all.
The flying reconnaissance force of the sovereign country also conducted reconnaissance here and reported a safe marching route to them. However, the responsibility was heavy. For safety reasons, the mixed team still had to move at night.
It is completely inconsistent with the characteristics of red imported fire ants and other ants to stay active during the day and emerge at night, but they are still trying to implement the plan.
Walking through this land now sparsely visited by ants, you can walk past old abandoned nests and dig in to take a look. There are often even decayed ant carapaces inside.
I don’t know what the red imported fire ant male ants felt when they witnessed all this.
But the team never stopped. Night after night, they kept moving forward firmly, relying on the food they caught along the way as supplies. Half a month later, they finally approached the territory of the Ant Alliance!
