Those years of engaging with the system for animal insurance

On the Internet forums in 05, there was an interesting urban legend circulating.

The legendary "death pangolin".

It is said that in the south of Huaxia Kingdom, people often see a lonely pangolin walking between major towns.Anyone who eats game will be injured and disabled when they touch it.

No one has ever caught it. For this reason, it is also listed as one of the top ten unsolved mysteries of the famous Internet: What did the pangolin do?

For those who haven't seen it, it's just a story fabricated by a group of boring netizens, because they don't eat wild game.

And some netizens who have seen it posted pictures on the Internet, and the shocking wound seemed to interpret a terrible memory.

They swore that there really was such a pangolin.

However, in the early years of the 21st century, such "weird stories" appeared on the Internet almost every now and then.Most people with brains just read it as a joke.Whoever believes is an idiot!

Li Cixin has been traveling with his younger brother pangolin for 7 years.In seven years, many wild animals have been rescued.

The two of them have gone from talking with each other to being able to communicate and cooperate with each other easily, which can be regarded as a historical progress.

However, Li Cixin felt that it was not a problem for the pangolin to follow him all the time.

According to the life span of a porcupine, it is theoretically 12 to 15 years.But when I came here, I was already an adult porcupine, probably three or four years old at that time.

Now that I am an old man, I probably don't have a good few years to live.But the lifespan of a pangolin is only about 20 years, and it is only in its young and middle age.

So during this period of time, he found a lot of little mother pangolins, gave them blind dates, and quickly married them.

In Li Cixin's tireless urging of marriage, this guy, facing so many fat, slender, or lively pangolin girls, is actually able to sit still.

Li Cixin let it go, until one day a few months later, they joined forces and rescued a female pangolin that lost her cub during lactation.

Who knows, they will see each other right.

Li Cixin: "..."

I didn't expect it, I didn't expect it!It turns out that there are also Cao thieves in the pangolin.

It is really intentional to plant flowers that will not bloom, but to plant willows and willows unintentionally.

After escorting the couple into the forest, Li Cixin also settled a posthumous matter.

One day three years later, feeling that his time was approaching, he found a deep cave and quietly welcomed the arrival of death.

"Drip, the C-level secondary task is completed, and the completion degree is B-level.

There is no gene reward. If you want to reach the level of opening the gene reward, you need to choose C-level secondary tasks continuously.

May I ask the host, are you willing to continue with the C-level secondary mission? "

Unexpectedly, a secondary task cannot reach the point of rewarding genetic modification.Li Cixin thought for a while, and decided to complete a secondary task.

"Yes, let's continue the mission."

This is also the first time I have completed the task consecutively.

"Drip! C-level secondary task: gentle giant.

Preserve the population fire of giant dugongs.The time coordinate is the eighteenth century, and the transmission begins. "

Li Cixin always felt that there was something wrong with this secondary task, but he couldn't tell.

The mission begins...

On the boundless sea, the cold current brought the cold air all the way southward, and some walruses were resting on the deserted island.

Li Cixin, who started a new mission, found himself lying on his back, with a soft and gentle feeling beneath him.

What's going on, what have you become?

Just as he was about to turn over, he was grabbed by two claws and couldn't move at all.

"System, what animal have I become now?"

"The host is now a member of Mammalia - Carnivora - Canisformes - Mustelidae - Sea Otter. Please receive the information."

It turned out to be a sea otter, a very cute marine mammal in my impression.

Sea otters live in the sea all year round. They eat and sleep in the sea. Because their fur is dense and waterproof, they don't have to worry about sinking. They spend almost their whole life floating on the sea.

Sea otters are mainly distributed in the cold North Pacific region and live by preying on sea urchins, abalones, crabs and shellfish.It is the smallest air-breathing mammal found in the ocean.

Even so, they weigh between 32kg and 45kg.

Because sea otters reproduce very slowly, there is only one litter in almost five years, and the pregnancy time is as long as 9 to 10 months like humans.

Therefore, the mother sea otter likes her babies very much during lactation, and often puts them on her dry belly to prevent the lanugo from getting water.

Sea otters have very thick fur and are famous hair riches.To what extent, compared to human hair:

There are about 10 to 12 hairs on the top of the human head; it is estimated that sea otters have up to 15 hairs per square centimeter of body surface.

This terrifying dense amount of hair has made contemporary bald young men look enviously.

Such abundant hair also evolved in such a cold environment.It is precisely this fur that has attracted human coveting. As early as the 17th century, fur traders in Xiongguo had been eyeing them.

A large number of sea otters were hunted, and their furs were sold as luxury goods, and became the scarves or clothes of some noble and wealthy businessmen.

The place where Li Cixin is now is the western island of the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific Ocean.In this era, this area is still inaccessible, so the sea otters here can live comfortably.

In the next few weeks, the sea otter mother let Li Cixin know what mother's love is like a mountain!

The mother sea otter often hugs the baby sea otter without spreading her claws, licks it from time to time, turns over, hugs the baby sea otter for kisses, and rubs the little round face.

A "mother's big boy" look.

In this way, Li Cixin enjoyed the "strong" maternal love for almost half a year.

Wait until he has basically completed the study of survivability.The female sea otter made a 180-degree turn, weaned her and abandoned her.

But Li Cixin could finally continue the mission.

This time, the system is still stingy and can only use three genes.Still the same as last time, I chose the third child.Strength, invisibility and strong corrosive fluid.

All of a sudden, he changed from a little cutie who weighed over sixty pounds to a big cutie who weighed about five hundred pounds.

After finding a calm sea, Li Cixin took a photo.Fortunately, it doesn't look hideous, like an oversized doll.

In the past six months of being a sea otter, he also learned from the information that the species of sea otter has a very important relationship with the giant dugong, the target of this mission.

The giant dugong is the second largest marine mammal in the history of human appearance, with a body length of 6-9 meters and a weight of 4-11 tons.About the size of an elephant, if not bigger.

Of course, they do have a relationship with elephants. After genetic testing in later generations, the most closely related manatee is the proboscis.

In the history of evolution, their common ancestors separated, one became the later elephant, and the other marched to the ocean and became manatees and dugongs.

The order of manatees is divided into manatee and dugong. Later, there were three species of manatees and one species of dugong.

The original name of the giant dugong was Stella Sea Cow.But in fact, if it is subdivided, it should be of the dugong family.

Because there are still differences between dugongs and manatees, such as their tails and mouths.Dugongs have crescent-shaped tails and pouch-shaped bills, while manatees have shovel-shaped tails and split bills.

The name Stella is not a place name, but is derived from the first discoverer of the giant dugong and also the initiator of the tragedy.

In 1741, Vitus Bering, the famous explorer of Xiong Kingdom, led his own fleet, under the command of Peter the Great, to open a new route to shorten the trade route with the Chinese Empire at that time.

But in June 1741, their fleet was in distress and most of the crew died.The remaining people wandered to a deserted island, which was later named Bering Island.

It was here that the giant dugong met human beings for the first time, and the result was a catastrophe.

Captain Vitus Bering died of scurvy.At that time, Stella, as the naturalist and doctor accompanying the ship, became the temporary leader.

In order to survive, these crew members tried their best to catch edible things, such as sea otters and walruses, but it was too difficult.The source of food is extremely unstable and often cannot get enough to eat.

Until later, they discovered the giant dugong.

Although the giant dugong is so big, it is actually an out-and-out herbivore.Feeds on seagrass and other marine plants and has little attack power.Even Stella herself called them "gentle giants."

For these desperate people, it was no less than a piece of fat floating on the sea, and they began to think of ways to prey on these big guys.

In Stella's book "Sea Beasts", the part of the light giant dugong takes up half of the page, which records in detail the methods and steps they slaughtered the giant dugong at that time:

They will use big iron hooks to hook the giant dugong in the water, and then more than [-] people will pull it hard together.When dragged to a very shallow place, the giant dugong will use its forelimbs to prop against the seabed to prevent itself from being dragged ashore.

At this time, someone will stab the giant dugong with a spear and finally kill it.

The book records that the meat of giant dugongs is very delicious, like beef; the fat can be used for lighting; the skin can even be used to mend ships.

In this way, by hunting giant dugongs, these people were able to survive the cold winter. After the boat was repaired in the second year, they left the deserted island.

If the story ended here, perhaps the giant dugong would not be extinct.

However, things backfired, and the legendary adventure of the Stella fleet brought out the news of the species of giant dugong.

The giant dugong, which is full of treasures and easy to catch, was also targeted by fur traders. A large number of explorers came to this sea area and slaughtered the giant dugong without restraint.

It is speculated that the giant dugong may be a monogamous animal with the ability to form groups.So after killing one, the others will not leave, and they are often taken by humans.

In just 27 years, in 1768, the last recorded giant dugong was killed, and since then this "gentle giant" has completely disappeared.

Not even soft tissue specimens were left, only bare bones remained.

After research by later generations, it is inferred that during the Pleistocene period, giant dugongs were widely distributed in the North Pacific Ocean, and the number began to decrease on a large scale during the Holocene period.

By the time humans discover them, it is estimated that only the Aleutian Islands, the Commandore Islands, and the vicinity of the Bering Strait are left, and the number is not large, estimated to be around 1500-2000.

Such population numbers are already dangerous.

However, human beings have accelerated their progress, causing devastating damage to it.directly to its demise.

Li Cixin knew that the fleet had not yet ended up in the Komandore Islands, so he had to go ahead and find the giant dugong.

But those crew members... You must know that a generation has a generation's thinking.

People at this time believed that natural resources were inexhaustible, so they would not restrain their demands from these animals at all.

Even in the 21st century, some people still have such a concept.It is too difficult to change this situation.

However, Li Cixin's primary goal now is to swim across the wide sea and head to Bering Island in the Commandore Islands.Stop the source of the disaster!

set off!