As announced, due to the night shift, there will only be one shift today and tomorrow, sorry!

- I'm the dividing line -

This is the second time the protagonist has seen locusts cannibalism. Compared to the last time, when only sporadic locusts gnawed on the corpses, this time the cannibalism scene was larger in scale and more cruel.

Hundreds of locusts, smelling the smell of the corpse and the subsequent smell of blood, swarmed from all directions, and soon covered the ground with a layer of dense and dense ground, and could only see the rising tide of insects and endless eating.

In addition to eating the immobile corpses, the surging locusts also suffered from the bloody mouths of their own kind, in addition to eating the corpses that could not move, but whose nerves had their necks severed but not yet dead.

When attacked, these locusts will consciously move their bodies to dodge, but in the face of their wolf-like counterparts in all directions, they have nowhere to escape. The head that is still alive watching his body being eaten little by little, although he is unconscious, but this kind of scene, if it is replaced by any creature with a certain amount of intelligence, he will definitely be scared to death.

The protagonist watches as the locusts swarm and whizz away in just a few minutes, leaving only the remains on the ground, which are inedible carapaces and wing membranes, and all the usable parts are almost gone, not even the tiny flesh in the arthropods has been spared, and the ground is full of chewed arthropods.

Although this group of locusts has not yet metamorphosed into flying locusts, it has already demonstrated its terrifying sweeping ability, and even its own kind will not let go.

This kind of cannibalism, i.e., the act of eating the flesh or carcass of the same animal, is not uncommon in nature, not only in insects, but also in multiple animals and some primates.

Some female animals eat stillbirths, placentas and feces of young animals in order to remove the dirt in the nest after giving birth: for example, hamsters and mice swallow some of the young animals due to excessive litter size, so that the survivors can grow normally; When a squirrel monkey has a miscarriage due to a lack of protein, it will devour its fetus; Female dogs and female cats often devour their sick youngsters to protect other youngsters. If a healthy piglet with a normal residual diet and a small number of pups occurs, it may be due to immaturity, lack of maternal experience, emotional agitation, and environmental harassment, and is associated with a decrease in postpartum progesterone levels (which have a sedative effect).

But there are also cannibalism that is not motivated by some kind of protection of the young. Some amphibians, such as the alpine salamander, will eat their younger siblings while they are still in the eggs. About one in five lion cubs in the wild is eaten by the big lions. Lionesses sometimes ruthlessly kills their cubs as food. There are also many lazy adult male lions who often devour their cubs when they are hungry. These lion cubs, in turn, may drive other adult males out of the pack in the future.

These are mainly cannibalism of the young.

Cannibalism in insects is mainly due to hunger, competition, mating, etc. Some species will hunt any suitable prey, including mating targets.

In nature, there are far more females than males who eat their own kind of animals. In spiders and insects, before and after mating or even during mating, it is common for females to eat males with their tails, in addition to praying mantises, a variety of spiders, midges and a kind of sea slugs, also have this special habit of females eating males, this behavior is also called sexual cannibalism.

The phenomenon of sexual cannibalism is thought to be due to a variety of complex evolutionary causes, including species cost-effectiveness, sperm competition, and mysterious male-female culling schemes. But after research, it was found that the motivation for this creepy cannibalism is very simple.

The first reason: studies have found that the males of some species, although devoured, have an evolutionary advantage by feeding the newly mated females with their bodies, increasing the chances of hatching and growing in the next generation, so that their genes can be passed on.

For example, red-backed spiders, male spiders that die from sexual cannibalism take more than twice as long to mate and give birth to twice as many offspring as those who escape. The male spider takes advantage of the long mating time to plug the sperm reservoir of the female spider with a broken mating device, blocking the way of other competitors to seek pleasure.

The second point is the reason for the size of the male and female. If males are smaller, they can easily be chased and preyed, and large females eat their weak mates for two reasons: either because they are hungry, or because they have the ability to eat males smaller than themselves.

Among wolf spiders, larger males are never eaten by their mates, while smaller males are eaten by their mates 80% of them.

This is the law of bloody nature. Cannibalism, in the final analysis, is often an extreme tactic used by animals to quell the competition for limited resources.

Although on the surface, the practice of locusts eating their own kind reduces the number of their own populations, which is not conducive to population expansion and gene retention.

However, in the case of limited food and living space, eating the corpses of the same kind, even living ones, is the most economical way.

Those locusts that can survive until they reach adulthood must be the locusts that can occupy a favorable position in the fiercest battles and battles, and they are also the strongest, most agile and healthiest locusts.

These locusts will pass on their high-quality genes from generation to generation, and they will become mobile scourges.

- I'm the dividing line -

The protagonist silently watches as the swarm of locusts disappears, following in the footsteps of the army of ants, leaving behind countless food for them.

What an ironic scene, it is clear that the ant army that came to exterminate the locusts acted as the promoter of the survival of the fittest among the locusts.

Locusts that are unlucky, not strong enough, and inaccurate in judgment will die under the siege of ants, while the better ones will enjoy the fruits of the ants and the carcasses of other locusts.

The protagonist can't help but reflect on whether it makes sense to exterminate locusts like himself, or whether he is just accelerating the competition and formation of locust swarms.

However, if you don't do this, you don't know how to nip a terrifying locust disaster in the bud.

After a long hesitation, seeing that the army of ants and the last locusts are about to disappear from view, the protagonist moves to another shrub with a good view with his followers.

After thinking about it for a while, the protagonist sends out a herald, and he plans to have the army turn back, prioritizing the elimination of the locusts that are gnawing at the corpses of their own kind.

These locusts are undoubtedly more ferocious, have seen blood, and know how to obtain more energy and nutrients, and must be eliminated first.

The messenger left the bushes and headed for the large army, but she was unable to complete her mission......