Swallowed again, re-sent!
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In mid-June, black fire ant country, western border.
This is an underground nest located on a hill. On the ground there are ant mounds with a typical honeycomb structure unique to the fire ant family and made of ant concrete.
This black fire ant mound looks very similar to the red imported fire ant mound at first glance, but if you look closely, you can see the differences.
The honeycomb-style ant mounds of the fire ant family are generally relatively low and thick, like a piece of porous cheese thrown on the ground. Even the largest ones are like this, but they are enlarged in proportion, not like cheese but like a tube building.
The hive-like ant mounds of the black fire ant family are relatively tall and slender, like a thick stick stuck on the ground, and then bored with countless holes by insects.
This ant mound of the black fire ant family is about half a meter high, with a bottom diameter of only two or three meters and a top diameter of about one decimeter. It is shaped like a cone barrel.
This is a good time of the year. At the turn of spring and summer, the temperature and humidity are most suitable. There is no trouble of late spring cold and plum rain, and there is no bad time of long drought and no rain in summer.
At this time, food resources are also extremely abundant. Most of the ant races that need to fly for marriage have completed the most important ceremony in the first half of the year and begin to concentrate on foraging for food and raising the next generation.
This nest is no exception. The young male ants who got married this year have returned and become a new leader, while the queen remains in the main nest.
This morning, as usual, the black fire ants scattered out of the countless holes in the ant mound and went to look for food nearby.
Unlike the leafcutter ants, black fire ants have a fixed planting industry to cultivate food. Their huge country relies entirely on hunting and gathering. Therefore, although the territory is not small, the density of ant colonies that can be maintained is not high, and The hard work is similar to that of other ant tribes.
This ant mound is located on a hill, close to a mountainous area. The vegetation is relatively sparse, lacking tall trees and low shrubs. There are only meadows extending in all directions, so food resources are not abundant.
The foraging black fire ants must patiently search every blade of grass from beginning to end. Most of the time, they will find one or two hidden rats under the grass roots by distinguishing the characteristics of the dug and loose soil. If it is an earthworm that has emerged from the ground before the sun rises, or a millipede slowly crawls by, it is a big target, enough to make the nearby worker ants and soldier ants far away abandon all tasks and rush. Come to support and get a great harvest.
And if you are lucky, you may be able to find a small cluster of insect eggs on the back of the grass blade. There are often small wriggling black spots inside the white, yellow-green or emerald eggs, which are the hatching insects. .
Such eggs are rich in nutrients. The worker ants must carefully pick them off and return them to the nest for the nest leader and queen to enjoy. Ordinary worker ants and soldiers have no right to consume them.
Sometimes what the worker ants find on the back of the grass blades are not eggs, but newly hatched larvae. These small, fat, colorful bugs are squirming, and their soft hairs have not yet grown, or they have no function when they grow. Deterrence. The worms are greedily eating the grass leaves, while the ants are even more greedy looking at the meat in front of them!
In addition to hunting for meat, the black fire ant family has a very diverse diet, and they are not immune to some vegetarian food.
In particular, the territory of this nest is barren. The soil in the nearby hills is shallow, the vegetation is not rich, and the prey is even less abundant. At this time, the edible buds, leaves, and flowers of wild vegetables will not be spared by the ants.
Even if it is some wild vegetables with a bitter taste, the black fire ants have a way to process them, either by roasting them with fire, drying them in the sun, or adding water drops and then kneading them repeatedly, or marinating them with precious commercial coarse salt. They have dozens of ways to eat different wild vegetables.
This is the time when the wild vegetables are most abundant. The ants are constantly flowing and gathering outside the nest. Each one is carrying a different wild vegetable. At this time, they look more like leaf-cutting ants, returning home holding the leaves they have just cut. nest.
In spring, the busy and fertile season, the territory of the black fire ant family is an idyllic scene.
However, such a peaceful and comfortable life will soon be broken!
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When several leaders of this ant nest received news from the worker ants who hurriedly came to report, they realized that a large group of strange "ants" were approaching the ant nest.
In the information package provided by the worker ants, the leaders saw this strange ant: the whole body is translucent, showing a white outer carapace in the sun, and the body has no obvious chest and abdomen. It can be divided into soldier ants and worker ants. .
The most important thing is that there are a lot of these strange "ants". The worker ants who reported the news were at the top of the grass blades. They only saw squirming white things coming out of the gaps in the grass blades in the distance. They were startled and hurriedly reported back.
Unlike the main nest, which has well-informed ants responsible for historical inheritance, these leaders do not recognize these as termites.
They just felt that there were a lot of attacking enemy ants. It was roughly estimated that there were as many as ten thousand within the visual range, which was far more than the defense force of their small border nest could resist.
Moreover, according to the general marching rules, these are probably just the enemy's vanguard units...
So the messengers of the black fire ant clan immediately set out from the ant nest and sent messages to nearby nests and the main nest for help.
At the same time, more messengers were sent out to recall the worker ants who were scattered for food, preparing to assemble to defend the nest. Even if they are at an absolute disadvantage in terms of numbers, the black fire ant warriors will not flee without a fight!
This group of termites came from the mountains to the west and along the mountain valleys, they had destroyed dozens of indigenous ant tribes along the way.
Termites have disappeared from the top of the world's food chain for a long time. They are even nicknamed "degenerate ants" by the civilized ant tribe. They have always been the target of suppression and exclusion.
But the world is too big. Even if ants spread all over the world, the land they can occupy and control is limited, leaving enough corners for other forces, even some dark forces, to survive.
This group of termites comes from the termite kingdom that the protagonist encountered when he entered the mountainous area and took a side road.
But this time, for some unknown reason, this group of termites, which had been growing silently in the gaps in the mountains for hundreds of thousands of years, suddenly left their homeland and their own country and territory. Hundreds of thousands of them entered the valley without stopping along the way. , and came straight out of the mountain!
News of a large number of termite invasions was soon sent to the main nest of the black fire ant clan, along with news of the collapse of several nests on the border.
Here, the male ant responsible for the inheritance finally recognized its identity, and then the bombshell news of the invasion of the "Fallen Ant Tribe" spread throughout the Black Fire Ant Country.
The other civilized ant tribes also quickly received an urgent report from the Black Fire Ant Kingdom's messenger!
