The leader told us not to worry too much. The giant ants' activities are just like those of the red tiger ants. They look dangerous, but their living habits are still traceable.
When the resources in a region are depleted, the giant ant colonies in the vicinity will leave that area. And they will not reappear in this resource-scarce area in the short term.
Therefore, we can time our visit precisely at this point in time, which will not only allow us to avoid a large number of giant ants, but also prevent us from encountering most of the wild beasts in the rainforest.
This tactic is called "the darkest place is under the lamp".
The most dangerous places are often the ones that are least expected to exist, so as to achieve a surprising victory.
However, how to quickly locate the giant ants has become our current problem.
These creatures are not stable in their movements. These nomadic insects hunt in very distant places, and when several groups go out together, the area they cover can be terrifying.
Since this approach isn't working, I have to try a different angle.
With so many giant ants, why do they gather in large numbers in this area instead of spreading out to forage elsewhere?
This is also something I don't understand. Logically speaking, the resources in one place shouldn't be enough for so many giant ants to come and share the food.
Therefore, there must be some specific reason why these machines are willing to stay here.
If something can make a group of instinctive creatures with relatively low intelligence stop in their tracks, then there is only one purpose: food, lots of food.
This region must have a hundred times more food than other places, enough to feed these carnivorous machines.
To achieve this, there aren't many creatures that meet the criteria; don't assume that wild animals and birds in the jungle are food on the giant ant's plate.
They are indeed food for giant ants, but they are not easy prey for them to catch.
I witnessed it back in my hometown. Those giant ants were undoubtedly superior in head-on confrontations and were invincible. No creature could shake their position.
That's why those animals aren't stupid. They won't just sit and wait for the giant ants to come and eat them. If they want to run, the giant ant army's pursuit speed is still not fast enough compared to those carnivorous beasts.
These giant ant colonies, which appear glamorous on the surface, actually struggle to even get enough to eat in resource-poor areas. They have no choice but to migrate constantly to obtain more food to sustain the colony.
Even so, they still cannot prevent large numbers of worker ants from starving to death due to insufficient food.
For giant ants, a place with a large population, slow-moving animals, and preferably permanent animals that are difficult to leave for a short period of time, becomes their primary food source.
Animals that meet these conditions are extremely rare; you could count them on your fingers without even having to count them. Only insects can meet these criteria.
Their populations are also enormous, and they undergo several stages of physical change throughout their lives. Before they become adults, they are quite dependent on their local environment.
With this in mind, the search scope was narrowed down again. Currently, there's only one organism I can think of that might fit these criteria.
That's another type of ant colony: termite colonies!
In terms of morphology, termites have soft bodies and are usually white, pale yellow, or brown. They have chewing mouthparts.
These termites can be considered a fairly good high-protein food source for giant ants.
In terms of lifestyle, termites are social insects with a clear division of labor. The queen is responsible for laying eggs and is enormous; worker ants are responsible for building the nest, finding food, and caring for the larvae; and soldier ants are mainly responsible for protecting the nest.
This type of insect, also social, solves a lot of the problem for giant ants in finding food. If they are lucky enough to find a few large termite nests, the resources inside are enough to support a large number of giant ants.
In terms of diet, termites mainly feed on wood and other materials high in cellulose, which makes their diet very broad.
Even if other animals cannot digest or utilize plant fiber, they can still use it as nourishment for their colony.
This is one of the secrets to how a species can thrive in one place for a long time, and there is another important point.
That is, termites have a very strong reproductive ability, a special ability that no mammal or bird can do.
The queen ant plays a key role in reproduction; she is usually very large and can lay a large number of eggs every day.
Some queen ants can lay thousands of eggs a day, and this egg-laying period can last for a long time. For example, under suitable conditions, some queen ant species can continue to lay eggs for several years.
Termites have several reproductive methods. In addition to sexual reproduction, which is the mating of queen and male ants, there is also a special reproductive method called parthenogenesis.
Even in the absence of male termites, the queen or some reproductively capable female termites can lay eggs, ensuring the continuation of the colony. These factors enable termites to reproduce rapidly, maintaining and expanding their population size.
Thinking about this, I felt like I was getting close to the truth; it was very likely that termites were one of their important food sources.
Next, we can narrow our search to termites. Termite nests are relatively easy to identify with a little observation.
If we explore areas with a high concentration of termites, the probability of encountering giant ants will increase significantly.
Finding the giant ant is like finding the key to the forbidden western lands.
In the days that followed, we began our search efforts in the southwest and northwest.
During this time, we also found some termite nests, but those places were clearly not the kind of places we had imagined where termite nests were everywhere. Their populations certainly couldn't sustain such a large population of giant ants.
Even with a direction in mind, the western region is still too vast. Searching with just the three of us wouldn't be efficient enough.
In the end, I had no choice but to spend some time training our only "smart drone," Pat, to give it a new skill: identifying termite nests.
Identifying termite nests isn't a simple matter of just spotting them. Pat will only notify us to go to that area to investigate when at least ten termite nests are discovered in succession, using a specific flight pattern and eagle calls.
This method worked perfectly. I just sent Pat out on patrol for two days, and he sent us back with good news on the afternoon of the second day.
The place where Pat found the large number of termite nests was not close to our location; it was probably more than eight kilometers away.
After a short rest and some planning, I began investigating the place that Pat had discovered the next morning.
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