Chapter 240: Withered leaves in one place, mimic insects
Time passed so unknowingly, and two days later, the toon leaves that had been treated with boiling water had been completely dried in the shade, and their initial weight of more than a thousand kilograms had become more than a hundred kilograms, a weight loss of more than ten times.
The processed toon leaves look like tea leaves. If you want to eat them in the future, you only need to soak these dried toon leaves in water for two hours and you can eat toon leaves that taste as good as fresh toon leaves. It is very convenient.
, and this is why Lin Shuhang was willing to spend two days making these toona leaves.
In a word, Lin Shuhang is always serious when it comes to food. As a foodie, he can't do anything to his mouth. God knows how long he can survive in dangerous prehistory. If he can survive one day, he should find a way to enjoy it one more day.
To Lin Shuhang and Crazy General, more than a hundred kilograms of dried toon leaves are not worth mentioning at all. They can be carried wherever they want.
Taking into account the humid climate of Fuhe Rainforest, in order to prevent these toon leaves from getting damp and moldy, Lin Shuhang stuffed all the processed toon leaves into bamboo tubes and tied them to his legs with tree vines.
After doing all this, Lin Shuhang and the Crazy General ate some roasted bugs and embarked on the journey again.
After nearly a month of hard travel, Lin Shuhang and Crazy General had arrived at the hinterland of Giant Insect Ridge. If nothing unexpected happened on the way, Lin Shuhang estimated that it would take at most half a month to be with Crazy General.
Crossing the Giant Insect Ridge.
Although the plan is good, sometimes there are always variables of one kind or another on the road.
For example, on this day, Lin Shuhang and Crazy General encountered a strange thing.
It was ten minutes in the evening. Lin Shuhang and Crazy General were walking through the rain forest as usual, and unknowingly walked into a strange area.
This area doesn't look much different from other areas. It has the same towering trees and the same weird and dark environment. The only difference is that there are a lot of withered yellow leaves on the ground in this area.
These leaves are withered and yellow in appearance and huge in size. Each dead leaf is four to five meters in size. The dead leaves are densely scattered on the ground in the forest, and are incompatible with the surrounding lush trees.
"Strange? Something doesn't feel right about this place?"
Looking at the dead leaves on the ground, Lin Shuhang frowned and felt that something was abnormal.
The Fuhe Rainforest has a tropical climate. There is only one season here, and the temperature remains at more than 20 degrees all year round. It stands to reason that plants in this climate will not experience such a large-scale defoliation phenomenon, but the fact is that the defoliation here is like autumn.
Same.
This cannot help but make people feel that things are strange and unreasonable.
Lin Shuhang's words attracted the attention of the audience outside the venue. Through the real-time broadcast of the footage, more and more netizens began to notice the dead leaves on the ground.
"Eh? Why are there so many fallen leaves here? It's so weird!" There was a lot of discussion in the live broadcast room, all discussing those strange leaves.
"It's normal to have leaves!" Some netizens argued: "Shouldn't there be fallen leaves in the forest?"
"You're right. Falling leaves is a normal phenomenon for plants. I won't refute this. But you have to know that falling leaves also have seasons and locations. The Fuhe Rainforest has a standard tropical rainforest climate, and the temperature here remains at 2 degrees all year round.
There is no autumn when the temperature is more than ten degrees. The leaf falling phenomenon that should only occur in autumn actually appears in the Fuhe Rainforest with a mild climate? Don't you think this kind of thing is weird? "
It is indeed a bit confusing to say this, because it is common knowledge that leaves fall in autumn. It stands to reason that large-scale leaf fall will not occur in the Fuhe Rainforest with a mild climate.
"Don't be so nervous, okay? What if these leaves are caused by unnatural defoliation caused by pests and diseases? You must know that pests and diseases can also cause large-scale defoliation of trees."
"Defoliation caused by pests and diseases? It's upstairs. Please open your eyes and take a closer look. Which big tree around has leaves of this shape?"
As the live broadcast footage continued to change, people discovered that the fallen leaves on the ground did not belong to any of the surrounding trees, as if they were growing out of the ground and were incompatible with the surrounding plants.
"Strange! Where did these leaves come from?" People were talking about this, and they felt more and more weird and incredible about these things.
"Isn't it just some leaves? Are you afraid of a hammer? Come on, Crazy General, let's go there!"
Lin Shuhang decided not to think about this matter anymore. No matter how much he thought about it, it would be fruitless. He was a hundred-foot giant, and beside him was a giant titan bear with unparalleled combat power. Was he afraid of a hammer?
Lin Shuhang said as he strode into the deciduous forest.
Something weird happened at this time!
When Lin Shuhang walked into the strange deciduous forest first, the dead leaves on the ground suddenly stood up from the ground as if they were alive!
This accident really shocked Lin Shuhang and Crazy General.
They both stood there and looked at the dead leaves standing upright. Their minds went blank, and each of them had an idea in their mind: Could these leaves be alive? How could they suddenly stand upright?
This is all so abnormal!
Someone saw the situation clearly and suddenly shouted nervously: "Oh my God! This is not a leaf, this is...a bug!"
Following the reminder from the audience, it was then that Lin Shuhang and Crazy General saw clearly that those dead leaves were actually mysterious insects shaped like dead leaves.
There was an uproar in the live broadcast room.
These insects look like dry leaves, standing up to more than ten meters high. Thousands of dead leaf insects stand upright with their dry bodies confronting the intruders in front of them. They look like alien monsters in Ultraman.
Same, very spectacular and shocking.
There was a suffocating chill in the air.
Lin Shuhang stood there like a statue, looking at the swarm of insects in front of him, his mind went blank. He never imagined that such an incredible thing would happen.
"Damn it, how could this happen?"
Lin Shuhang encountered such a strange thing for the first time and seemed a little at a loss for a while.
"Old, old fellows, who can tell me what kind of insect this is?" Facing the densely packed dead leaf insects, Lin Shuhang's face turned pale.
"Apparently, these strange dead leaf-shaped insects should be mantis species!"
"Praying Mantis?" Lin Shuhang frowned and instantly realized the seriousness of the matter.
He knew about the praying mantis. This insect, also called the knife mantis, was a ferocious and large carnivorous insect in nature.
The head of this insect is in the shape of an inverted triangle, the compound eyes are large and bright, the antennae are slender, and the neck can rotate freely 180 degrees.
They have various shapes, two pairs of wings, and three pairs of legs.
The front legs are huge sickle-shaped predatory pins, and there are sharp hook-like spines on the leg joints and tibia joints. Because it looks like a praying girl when it raises its forearms, it was also called the "prayer insect" in ancient times.
The mantis has a flexible inverted triangular head, a pair of compound eyes on both sides of the head, and three single eyes arranged in a triangle between the two compound eyes.
This insect has well-developed mouthparts and huge jaws that can crush hard beetles in one bite.
The most distinctive feature of the praying mantis is the pair of well-developed sickle-shaped front legs on its chest.
The swing speed of this sickle-shaped forefoot is as fast as lightning, 10 times faster than the blink of an eye! Once they attack their prey, no matter how agile the creature is, they cannot escape from their hands.
In the eyes of humans, mantises are extremely cruel and cold-blooded creatures, because they not only prey on other creatures, but also prey on their own kind, that is, the female mantis eats the male before and after mating.
Just like other prey, most female mantises will brutally bite off the male mantis's head during mating and eat her husband as food.
Like other related insects, the praying mantis also goes through three stages of metamorphosis during its limited life: egg, pupa (larvae) and adult.
Mantises are hemimetabolous insects. Their larvae are very similar to adults in structure, except that compared to adults, mantis larvae are smaller and have no wings.
This creature is a master of mimicry from birth, but the larvae can only imitate the color of ants, while the adults can imitate a variety of objects, such as leaves, grass blades, flowers, stones, branches, soil and other objects.
Just like these dead leaf mantises, their camouflage is very clever. If they hadn't stood up from the ground on their own initiative, Lin Shuhang and Crazy General would never have been able to tell that they were mantises.
In the wild, the natural lifespan of most mantises is 10 to 12 months. After mating with a male mantis, the female mantis will lay sticky egg sacs under leaves or branches before winter arrives.
If the egg sacs can survive the winter, the larvae will appear in late spring or early summer. The larvae have huge appetites. If there are not enough aphids and other small insects, the mantis larvae will hunt each other cruelly to satisfy their hunger.
As masters of invisibility in nature, most types of mantises can use protective colors to cleverly blend in with the surrounding plants. Some types of mantises can even directly imitate the shape of plants, making themselves look like branches, bark, and dead leaves.
, flowers, and stones.
Just like the dead leaf knife beetles that Lin Shuhang and Mad General encountered, they looked like dry leaves. If they didn't stand together at the same time, no one with good eyesight would be able to tell them apart.
"Anchor, you and the crazy general seem to have broken into the territory of the mantis."
"I asked why these dead leaves look so weird. Then, it turns out they are a group of mimic hunters who are good at disguise. The anchor is in big trouble now!"
There was a lot of discussion in the live broadcast room, and everyone was worried about Lin Shuhang and Crazy General.
"What should I do? Run or not?" Looking at the densely packed dead leaf beetles, Lin Shuhang broke out in a cold sweat.
Yes, at this time, Lin Shuhang and the Crazy General were already in a dangerous dilemma, because what they encountered was not other creatures, but a group of cruel, cold-blooded, "flat-headed brothers in the insect world" who had no fear of life and death - giant knife beetles.