The reason why aphids are willingly kept in caves by ants is because of the meticulous care of them by the ants.
The outside world is full of dangerous biological enemies, as well as terrible storms and other irresistible natural disasters.
How good would it be to hide quietly in an ant hole and be a cow? You can't be blown by the wind, you can't get wet by the rain, and you don't have to worry about natural enemies. Therefore, aphids are not opposed to this kind of captivity, and it's already in their genes.
Accepted this method of captivity.
In order to obtain fresh aphid honeydew, the ants take very good care of the aphids. Not only do they move them into ant holes that are sheltered from wind and rain, but they also provide them with safety and food guarantees.
For example, when grazing outside the cave, in order to ensure the safety of aphids from being invaded by other organisms, the queen ant will send powerful soldier ants to patrol and guard near the pasture to prevent the "livestock" raised by the ant tribe from being disturbed by natural enemies.
Although ants are powerful, the outside world is not a safe place and is still very dangerous.
In order to prevent the "livestock" they raise from being plundered by other creatures in the outside world, most of the time, aphids are forcibly kept in grazing holes.
It is more appropriate to say that it is a pastoral cave than a "cattle pen".
Like other caves, the herding cave where aphids are kept is located more than 100 meters underground.
Since there is no sunlight here, it is difficult for plants to grow here in this environment.
Aphids don't eat anything else. They only eat plant juices, and their food intake is huge. Each aphid has to suck hundreds of pounds of plant juice every day to secrete ten pounds of sweet honeydew.
In order to collect enough honeydew to feed the queen of the ant tribe and at the same time ensure that the captive aphids do not starve to death due to lack of enough food, worker ants need to constantly transport food to them from the outside.
Every morning, the ants will send worker ants outside the ant nest to collect fresh leaves and young stems for the aphids, and then transport them back to the hole for the aphids to eat. In the evening, they will send "milking ants" into the grazing hole to provide food for the queen ant.
Collect the required honeydew.
There is no way, after all, they are a kind of feed. During the thousands of years of domestication of ants, aphids have long lost the ability to survive independently and can only rely on ants for feeding.
It’s time to collect honeydew for the queen ant again!
Dozens of hard-working "milking ants" crawled along the huge tunnel towards the Mu Cave.
When these "milking ants" arrived at Mudong, they discovered something that puzzled them.
The "milking ants" who came to collect honeydew for the queen were depressed to find that for some reason the "cows" they raised had a deflated belly today, without any honeydew.
But the worker ants responsible for feeding these cows have not been lazy. Today they have transported several tons of fresh leaves and plant stems to the grazing hole.
There is no reason why these cows should not produce milk after eating so many leaves and plant stems! In the past, they could produce hundreds of kilograms of honeydew!
The "milking ants" took the trouble to slap the bellies of the aphids with their tentacles. The strange thing is that no matter how hard the "milking ants" slapped them, the "cows" just refused to release honeydew.
You must know that the honeydew of aphids is the food that queens rely on for survival. If they cannot collect honeydew, queens will starve.
The number of ants produced by a starving queen will be severely reduced, and the number of ants produced is a key factor in measuring the strength of an ant tribe!
If the number of ants produced decreases, the entire ant tribe will turn from prosperity to decline. This will be a very terrible consequence!
Although ants are smart creatures, they have not evolved independent thoughts. Except for the ability to breed queen ants that can live for hundreds of years, they are just a group of biological puppets and naturally cannot understand this strange phenomenon.
Dozens of milking ants crawled around in panic in the grazing hole, slapping the abdomens of aphids one by one with their tentacles.
The frustrating thing is that no matter how hard the "milking ants" slap the aphids' abdomens, the aphids just refuse to expel honey.
How did these milking ants know that Lin Shuhang had stolen all the honeydew the queen needed?
At this time, Lin Shuhang was hiding in the corner of the animal cave, sleeping soundly with the body of a giant aphid on his pillow.
The milking ants squeezed honeydew for the aphids one after another. Finally, a milking ant discovered the thief who was sleeping soundly with the aphids on his pillow.
The ants were instantly in a mess!
No wonder they have been unable to squeeze out honeydew. They thought that the worker ants responsible for feeding the aphids were lazy and did not let the "cows" eat their bellies. It turned out that there was a thief hiding in the grazing hole who was eating honeydew!
That's the queen's food!
The queen ant is related to the life and death of the entire ant clan. How can her food be easily eaten by other creatures?
This is challenging the dignity of the milking ant!
The milking ants became angry, waving their huge jaws and teeth, and with a "hoo!", seventy or eighty milking ants surrounded them.
The milking ants that surrounded me opened their huge jaws and began to bite.
Although milking ants are not a type of combat worker, due to their huge size, the biting power of their jaws and teeth is also terrifying.
With one bite, Lin Shuhang's leg was immediately pinched by the milking ant's sharp jaws, causing a large gash to bleed.
"What the hell!" Lin Shuhang jumped up from the ground with a "ouch".
It hurt so much! It felt like a pair of big scissors had cut my flesh.
The grazing hole used by ants to trap aphids was only a dozen meters high. Lin Shuhang was 12 meters tall. As soon as he jumped, his head immediately hit the roof of the grazing hole. There was a "bang" sound, and his head was dripping with blood.
.
"Ugh...it hurts so much!" Lin Shuhang was so dizzy from being hit that he hugged his bulging head and cried tears of pain.
When he saw clearly that the ones biting him were a group of big ants, Lin Shuhang's heart skipped a beat and he panicked.
"Holy shit, I've been discovered!"
"Anchor, run! Anchor, run!"
Lin Shuhang was caught off guard by the sudden situation. He didn't know what type of work these ants belonged to. If they were soldier ants with extremely strong combat power, they would be in big trouble!
"Chichi...chichi!"
Dozens of milking ants surrounded me with their huge jaws and teeth open.
Looking at those huge jaws and teeth, even though he was a Titan, Lin Shuhang did not dare to lift them up in this situation.
This is an ant nest located hundreds of meters underground!
"Isn't it just stealing a little bit of your honeydew? I'm not stealing your cows. Is that what it's like?"
Lin Shuhang retreated nervously.
Prehistoric ants are no better than ants on Earth. A bite from an ant on Earth would hurt for a long time, not to mention these giant ants up to 2 meters long?
"Go away, you nasty little things!"
"Go away, go away quickly!"
"Ho! Roar!"
Facing the approach of the giant ants, Lin Shuhang kept making strange roars from his mouth, which sounded like the roars of jackals, tigers and leopards, which was very scary.
This is the warning sound used by Titans to intimidate opponents when they are in danger.
If it were any other creature, it might be afraid of this scary roar, but this is a group of ants without independent thoughts.
These milking ants were not afraid of Lin Shuhang's roar, waving their huge jaws and swarming towards Lin Shuhang like a tide.