Xiao A scratched his head, "Declaring territory... usually through physical signals or chemical signals. Physical signals are scratches and bites, etc., and chemical signals are to emit odor information in various ways. These two types of markers are placed with humans or
It’s almost like a warning sign.”
Isn’t that all there is to claiming territory?
Regardless of whether the signal is physical or chemical, if the mark doesn't work, fight. If one fight doesn't work, fight several. If it doesn't work, fight until death.
What Xiao Jia is wondering is why Feng Yi is interested in these?
After saying a few words briefly, Xiao Jia observed Feng Yi's reaction.
Feng Yi's expression didn't show whether he agreed or not, but he must have heard it, and he didn't know what he was thinking.
After waiting for a while, Feng Yi asked Xiao Jia to rest, and he continued to watch the documentary. After watching it, he washed up and lay on the bed, thinking about ways to declare his territory.
Instinct told him that relevant information was recorded in his ancestral DNA, but he still had to try it himself to know how to operate it.
I don’t know if he thought too much before going to bed. Feng Yi had many messy dreams at night, but he couldn’t remember them when he woke up.
Before going out in the morning, Feng Yi asked Xiao Jia to get ready. He would go out on the yacht in the evening because he had something to do.
Xiao Jia didn't ask any more questions and answered excitedly. All he had to do was execute, and he would do whatever the boss said.
Although I don’t know what Feng Yi is planning to do, it doesn’t matter, he finally has a place to use!
He already knew where to go to sea, at what time and in which direction. He would confirm it later...
As for fishing…
What kind of fish are you fishing for?
Is it fun to go fishing with the boss?
It would be even better if the boss can bring him with him when he does trouble!
Xiao Jia rushed out the door excitedly.
Feng Yi went to sea with the investigation team after breakfast just like the previous few days. However, today’s half-day mission returned at noon. The bosses had to hold several important meetings. In this meeting, Feng Yi and others were very important.
Core members do not need to participate.
With nothing else to do and many questions in his mind, Feng Yi couldn't stay in the dormitory any longer, so he took a nap in the dormitory and prepared to go out.
He changed out of his work clothes and wore a simple sweatshirt and sunglasses hanging from his collar.
Ever since he was recognized for the first time while looking for food on the street, Feng Yi would not wear work clothes when he went out for a stroll again.
At the north gate of the dormitory area, Feng Yi saw Professor Ding walking in from the outside.
The big black dog who was responsible for guarding the north gate was probably familiar with Professor Ding, and he came close to him wagging his tail.
While Professor Ding was petting the dog, he chatted with Old Liu in the guard box. When he saw Feng Yi, he raised his hand to say hello.
Feng Yi walked over and asked him: "Is the meeting over so soon?"
Professor Ding waved his hand, "I have already given them the data and analysis report. Anyway, I am not always following the investigation team here. We still have our own tasks. Let them decide what to do here."
Then he asked Feng Yi, "How did you read the courseware yesterday? Do you have any questions?"
After thinking about "declaring territory" all night, Feng Yi, who didn't read the courseware, said: "...Yes."
Professor Ding became interested, "Tell me about it, I just have time now."
Feng Yi: "It's not from the courseware, I just thought of it when I was reading other materials. Can different species really communicate through chemical substances?"
Professor Ding said: "Of course!"
Without any hesitation.
Professor Ding: “Each trophic level of the ecosystem food chain has formed complex interrelationships during the long-term co-evolution process in nature. Chemical substances released by plants or animals play an important role in information communication and have also formed extremely complex relationships. Information network. Many people are interested in this kind of chemical information communication, but so far, what we know only scratches the surface."
Thinking that Feng Yi was not professional in theoretical knowledge, Professor Ding changed his words and said, "Speaking of this, we have to mention the sense of smell. For example, if you are sensitive to a certain substance, when you smell it, the relevant parts of the olfactory organ will The olfactory receptors are activated, forming a specific olfactory sensory pathway. Do you know 'olfactory receptors'? They are special proteins that can bind to odor molecules and are responsible for transmitting odor signals to the brain."
Feng Yi nodded: "Yes, I know."
"Generally, we believe that the more 'olfactory receptor' genes you have, the stronger your olfactory ability. Different species have different olfactory abilities. We humans have about 400 species, and we can only be considered average in this regard."
Professor Ding has nothing else to do now, so he is sitting on the edge of the flower bed if he is not in a hurry.
"For example, this dog has a much stronger sense of smell than humans..."
Professor Ding waved to the black dog.
The big black dog came over wagging its tail, and then its long protruding mouth was caught.
Dogs have more facial expressions than wolves, and the most intelligent ones are the muscles at their eyebrows, which twitch and twitch, coupled with the hesitant wagging of their tails, clearly show their inner activities at this time.
But Professor Ding didn't pay attention to its little mentality at this time.
"When it smells something, part of the air goes to the respiratory system, and the other part..."
Professor Ding moved his fingertips along the central axis above the dog's nose to between the eyes, and tapped lightly:
"... leads to the olfactory crypt. Odor molecules will complete olfactory detection on this special structure. They can accurately identify a certain odor in a complex environment, and even know clearly which odors are smelled by which nostrils. .”
After releasing the long beak of the big black dog, Professor Ding looked up and saw the birds flashing across the sky:
"Take this bird as another example. In people's common understanding, except for vultures and other birds that hunt by smell, most other birds have almost no sense of smell. But their genes tell us that this is not the case. Through genome sequencing, we can It was found that many birds have olfactory receptor genes, ranging from about 100 to more than 600.
"Studying the evolutionary tree can reveal that the ancestors of birds likely had very diverse olfactory receptor genes, allowing them to distinguish some important odor information. There are many chemical information that they are not sensitive to, and we do not know the information that they are sensitive to, or Little is known.”
Professor Ding looked at Feng Yi: "If you want to study the chemical information communication between species, you can't think from a human perspective. Their olfactory world is different from ours. You can't imagine the world they perceive.
What a world."
Feng Yi, who feels a different world: "...You are right."
Thinking of something, Professor Ding smiled again and said: "No, no, no, I just said it wrong, it was too absolute. We are the same people, but you are different from us!"
Feng Yi's heart skipped a beat, but his expression remained unchanged and his face was calm: "What's the difference?"
Professor Ding: "For example, if you are sensitive to the smell of snakes and can smell smells that we cannot smell, you may have more olfactory genes than most of us. There is indeed a small group of people in the world, to be precise,
A very small number of people have a hypersensitive sense of smell. You are lucky to be one of them."
Feng Yi took a long breath without leaving a trace and said: "There are differences among individuals."
"Yes, that's it. But no matter what, we humans can't compare with those species that have a strong sense of smell." Professor Ding sighed, "I now hope that the electronic nose can speed up its upgrade. Maybe one day I can use the instrument to know whether I have a strong sense of smell."
Species gifted with a sense of smell, what kind of world do they see? Are you looking forward to it too?"
Feng Yi: "...Hmm."
Professor Ding complained again, "Human odor receptors are not up to par. There are many ideas. They may not all be in your nose, and they may be in some strange places!"
Feng Yi was curious: "For example?"
Professor Ding: "For example, hair follicles. If they smell certain 'correct' smells, they will be specifically activated. Although they won't tell you what the smell is, it can prevent hair follicles from degenerating, or prevent hair loss!"
Not far away, a young worker's eyes were burning and he couldn't help but said: "So, where can I buy this 'correct' smell?"
Professor Ding touched his slightly bald head and said, "Ah, I want to know too."
Feng Yi had no other questions, so Professor Ding started discussing with the man how to prevent falling off gracefully.
Feng Yi didn't have this kind of trouble for the time being, so he stopped participating in their discussion.
Walking to the street, Feng Yi put on the hood of his sweatshirt and sunglasses. He bought a shared bicycle and came to a small park near the sea.
Xiao Jia said that there are not many tourists here, and this time period is not a crowded time.
The weather is very good today, with sea breeze blowing.
There was no one here at this time, but it was not deserted. There were also sparrows chirping in the trees.
The sparrows here are very courageous. It can be seen that both tourists and local residents here are very friendly to them. They form groups from time to time and actively or passively get some food from people's hands.
Probably because they were full, one of them was very energetic and active among the branches.
A few of them stared at Feng Yi and then turned away without interest. Even when Feng Yi came closer, they just fluttered their wings and jumped around, and then continued to ignore them.
Feng Yi checked the direction of the wind and raised his hand towards the sparrows on the tree.
The pupils of both eyes behind the sunglasses gradually became vertical.
Chemical substances that ordinary people could not see or smell emitted from the skin of the palms and headed towards the group of sparrows.
Organisms that are insensitive to this chemical information substance cannot detect anything, but what they can feel is different.
This group of sparrows seemed to see a bloody mouth with two fangs coming towards them!
The originally distracted sparrows suddenly screamed and flew away in panic.
A single sparrow will not cause much noise, but a group of sparrows suddenly fluttering away as if fleeing will inevitably attract the attention of nearby people.
There were scattered people scattered everywhere. They looked towards that corner and saw nothing. There was only a man in a sweatshirt sitting there and basking in the sun. Others were nothing special.
The wind at the seaside blows away the invisible and unsmellable substances in the air.
Everything is still as beautiful as before.
"Is there another wild cat coming here to catch sparrows?" said an old lady.
"Not necessarily, sparrows are always startled."
"No, the sparrows here are very brave!"
"It's okay, they will fly back later."
However, until the sun went down, the group of sparrows that flew away never flew back to that tree. At most, they just jumped on other branches in the park, but not a single sparrow flew over that corner.