Those years of engaging with the system for animal insurance

The place where you can see is full of darkness, half of the sky is covered, and the deafening sound of flapping wings resounds through the sky.

Li Cixin looked at everything in front of him, but couldn't think of a sentence to describe it.After so many missions, I am still very shocked by this.

These are not dark clouds, nor aliens, but densely packed birds.

An endless flock of birds covering the sky and the sun.It has become the trend of black clouds overwhelming the city, and there is no end in sight.

Li Cixin, who was staring at this scene in a daze, suddenly felt as if something had hit his head, which was refreshing.

What's this?Li Cixin stretched out his paw, and pulled it off.It feels a bit like a lump of shampoo, sticky and sticky.

As soon as the claws were taken off, a stench came over the face.

It's bird droppings!It was the first time Li Cixin experienced such a "shit is imminent" accident.

He didn't have time to think about it, because more bird droppings were already pouring down like a torrential rain.

run!

Up to now, Li Cixin doesn't know what he has become. He only knows that he has limbs and a tail.It can be seen from the fur on the body that this should be a mammal.

The "poop rain" is getting more urgent and denser.

In this situation, Li Cixin hurriedly searched for cover.It's a pity that there is no shelter nearby.

"Xiaobao, check for me, is there any hiding place next to this?"

"After detection, there is a fallen hollow tree at 453 meters in the direction of three o'clock, which can be used as a cover."

Li Cixin stood up his upper body, stretched his neck and looked in the direction indicated, and found a tree lying on the ground.

He hurried over.I have to say that although this body is not big, its speed is quite fast.Although a lot of bird droppings were smashed along the way.

A few minutes later, Li Cixin arrived at his destination.

The tree was probably dead for a long time, and the trunk had disappeared, leaving only a circle of bark.

Li Cixin couldn't control that much now, so he directly plunged into the tree trunk.

"Little Treasure, what animal have I become now? Where is the approximate time and place?"

"Master, the animal you are now changing into is a raccoon of the raccoon family of the order Carnivora. The environment you are in is the west of the Mississippi River Plain in the beautiful country in the early [-]th century."

Li Cixin: "So I turned into crispy noodles!"

No wonder, just now Li Cixin felt that something was wrong with his claws.It turned out to be a raccoon, a rare carnivore that can grasp things, and its claws are relatively flexible.

Raccoons are omnivores, they are almost not picky eaters, and they have a very strong ability to survive.

They like to hide in tree holes to rest during the day, and they will come out quietly to look for food at night. Because of their small size, although they have no defense ability, they are still alive and nourishing.

In the later era, as the life of the people in the beautiful country became more and more prosperous.A large amount of food scraps and household garbage feed many American animals, such as black bears and raccoons.

The two brothers often rummaged through trash cans for food.

These raccoons in the backyard of the beautiful Chinese, relying on picking up garbage to eat, one by one, became one of the most successful animals in North America.

Of course, this is also inseparable from the intelligence and cunning of this animal.Raccoons in the wild are still aggressive and will even prey on domestic cats.

People often confuse raccoons with Asian red pandas, although at first glance, the two critters are very similar.But they are not the same species at all, not even the same family.

If you look closely, you can see a huge difference:

Red pandas are also called nine-section wolves because their tails have nine rings.The overall color is mainly red and black, with some white distribution.The body shape is also plump and round, looking like a plush doll.

When in danger, red pandas will often stand up and raise their forelimbs, like a French military salute.

But in fact, this is just a way for them to intimidate the enemy.Just like the "umbrella" of the umbrella lizard stretching its neck, it makes itself look bigger and achieves the purpose of deterring the enemy.

From a human point of view, such a cute deterrent can hardly do anything.Instead, it's more like being cute on purpose.

But raccoons are different, their main colors are black, white and gray.Moreover, the raccoon's mouth is relatively long, and it looks like a monkey with a sharp mouth and a pair of eyebrows and mouse eyes. It makes people feel that it is much smarter than the red panda.

Li Cixin has now turned into a raccoon. While grabbing the dead leaves in the tree hole and wiping the bird droppings on his body, he asked the system:

"Xiao Bao, how long will it take for this group of passenger pigeons to migrate?"

Xiaobao replied: "According to the current situation, it is estimated that this wave of passenger pigeons will pass through here for at least one day."

"One day?" Li Cixin was surprised, what kind of concept is this?The overwhelming scene will last at least one day.How many passenger pigeons are there in such a group?

Li Cixin opened the information about passenger pigeons this time and read it in detail.

Coincidentally, the passenger pigeon and the dodo bird in the previous mission belong to the same family, and both belong to the dove family.

Passenger pigeons are also called wandering pigeons. They are slightly larger than ordinary pigeons and are a kind of migratory bird.

The largest population of passenger pigeons in history is estimated to be 50 billion individuals.What is this concept?The total population of the earth at the beginning of the 21st century was more than six billion.

And 50 billion passenger pigeons are almost all distributed in North America, such a density can be imagined.

Passenger pigeons like to live in the forests of eastern North America and migrate with the seasons.

They tend to prey collectively and reproduce collectively.Then the grown-up chicks take off together.

Relying on this survival strategy of stacking numbers, passenger pigeons once accounted for one-third of the number of land birds in North America.

For Li Cixin, the animals he saved before.Basically, either they were originally at the top of the food chain and their numbers were scarce, or they decreased with environmental changes.

Possibly, most people would never have imagined, a bird that can fly and has an astonishingly large number.It is appalling that it can be extinct in more than a century.

But the passenger pigeon has indeed become extinct. It has been hunted in large numbers since the 50th century. In more than a century, from a huge population of [-] billion to none left.

From 1534, the French explorer Jacques Cartier first discovered the passenger pigeon, to 1914, when the last passenger pigeon "Martha" died in the zoo.

The passenger pigeon has completely disappeared from the face of the earth.

Browsing through these materials, Li Cixin didn't notice any movement on the side.Suddenly, he heard a rustling sound, the sound was very strange, he seemed to have heard it somewhere.

However, the muscle memory of this body is faster than his, and the fear brought from the depths of his genes made him move away from the source of the sound first.

The raccoon has good night vision, and he looked into the middle of the tree hole.A big snake was lying on the dead leaves, staring at him covetously.

The bifurcated snake letter keeps pouring out, capturing the odor molecules in the air.

The strange sound just now came from the snake's tail.Section by section, like the ring structure of the large intestine.

The snake is earthy gray in color with black ribbed markings on its back.

Looking at its appearance, Li Cixin already guessed that it should be the North American rattlesnake.

The most dangerous venomous snake in North America.

As an animal that has lived in the same place with these poisonous snakes for an unknown number of years.

The raccoon's intuition is still very sensitive. Facing this adult giant rattlesnake, Li Cixin had a voice in his heart: It is best not to provoke it.

If it is a small snake, it can also be eaten as spicy noodles for raccoons.But for such a relatively large venomous snake, the amount of poison injected is also very large, and it is too risky to provoke such a target.

Li Cixin originally wanted to take a step back, but this rattlesnake was aggressive.

It actually followed up a step, and took an S-shaped posture, obviously about to launch an attack.

Li Cixin didn't want to get entangled with it at first, but when he saw the bird droppings still falling outside, he could only get into a tangle.

At this moment, the rattlesnake launched its first attack. Obviously, it miscalculated the distance, so it did not bite Li Cixin.

The rattlesnake went one step further. In such a narrow and long space, which is the home field of snakes, Li Cixin could only temporarily retreat to the outside of the tree.

Facing the guy who drove him away, Li Cixin took the opportunity of being "baptized" by bird droppings, found some stones, bent his body, hugged the stones, and staggered into the tree hole.

Like a wretched little old man.

He blocked some stones between the rattlesnake and himself, and built a small wall.

Fortunately, the raccoon's claws are flexible and can make the stone wall look good, so the rattlesnake couldn't come over and was squeezed to the edge of the tree hole.

The originally comfortable middle area of ​​the tree hole was logically occupied by Li Cixin.

Sure enough, on the territory of the beautiful country, the method of the beautiful country has to be used.

After Li Cixin successfully isolated the rattlesnake by repairing the wall, he once again cleaned his hair covered in bird droppings.

At the same time, Xiaobao asked:

"Xiaobao, what is the mission gene this time?"

"New task gene - sonic attack: it can attack individuals or groups, and through energy resonance, it can cause damage to the brain and organs, which can lead to death in severe cases."

"Sounds very good." Li Cixin was more interested in this ability, so he said to the system:

"Xiaobao, can we start genetic modification now?"

"No." Xiaobao said negatively, "The environment we are in now is too small, so it is not suitable for renovation."

"Well, after these passenger pigeons have migrated, let's go out and look for them."

Li Cixin stayed in this tree hole for a whole day and night, and the sun didn't show his face until the next afternoon.

Li Cixin poked his head out cautiously and observed the sky. The dense flock of passenger pigeons had long since disappeared.All that remained was a layer of bird droppings on the ground, proving that they had been there.

Facing the disgusting sticky ground, Li Cixin raised his tail and quickly rushed towards the woods not far away.

Fortunately, the situation in the woods is much cleaner. Although the migratory pigeons were once stationed and rested, the big trees with luxuriant foliage blocked a lot of bird droppings.

There is still room to set foot on the ground.

Li Cixin searched carefully in the woods. On the one hand, he was worried that the bird droppings would fall on him again, and on the other hand, he was also on guard against other beasts.

In the natural state, the places where migratory animals pass often attract many predators.

Just like the great migration of herbivores on the African savannah, during the migration of wildebeest herds, crocodiles, lions, leopards, etc. are all hungry and waiting for a chance to have a full meal.

There are also many predators in North America, such as pumas, black bears, brown bears, wolves, birds of prey, etc., can easily kill Li Cixin now.

Under the guidance of the system, Li Cixin finally found a suitable place for genetic modification.

This is an abandoned brown bear cave, and there is a brown bear skeleton in it, which deters most of the nearby predators.

After repeatedly confirming that there was no danger, Li Cixin got into the cave and started genetic modification with the corpse.