1 . You may have recently seen a video from the Beijing Wildlife Zoo becoming a hit. What exactly was so interesting about this video? It shows a dog playing with big cats four to five times its size! Many people might wonder if this dog has a death wish, but it seems that the dog and the big cats are good friends.
The dog was actually raised alongside the lion and tiger cubs, making up an odd but loving family, according to zoo officials. As opposed to the common belief, cross-species friendship has been around for centuries. People have domesticated many animals, most notably cats and dogs, and formed bonds with them as pets. Perhaps you even have a pet yourself.
There are many other instances of cross-species friendships.
At an animal sanctuary in Santiago, Chile, a jaguar named Marina and a deer named Laura formed a friendship after they both came to the park. As neither animal had a mother, sanctuary staff said they instantly bonded when they met. Laura had been rescued from a slaughterhouse while Marina had been rescued from the street.
One possible explanation for these friendships is the environment of the zoo. Animals don’t hunt for their food and don’t need to worry about marking their territory or looking for mates in the way an animal in the wild would. “All those activities take time and energy, and if these needs are removed, the animals get bored,” Gordon Burghardt, a psychologist at the University of Tenessee, US, told The Atlantic magazine. “In this particular situation, the animal’s motivation to engage socially and playfully may be higher in its need hierarchy(等级)than eating.”
Marc Bekoff, former biology professor at the University of Colorado, US, told Slate magazine, “I think the choices animals make in cross-species relationships are the same as they’d make in same-species relationships. Some dogs don’t like every other dog. Animals are very selective about the other individuals who they let into their lives.”
1. What is the common opinion about the friendship between animals?| A．It’s easier for dogs and cats to become friends. |
| B．Animals tend to play with peers of the same species. |
| C．The friendship between animals is not solid and reliable. |
| D．It’s common that animals of different species can become friends. |
| A．To present a truth. | B．To explain a phenomenon. |
| C．To introduce the topic. | D．To provide a proof. |
| A．The existing tradition. | B．The influence by mates. |
| C．The animals’ inner social drive. | D．The animals’ raisers’ instruction. |
| A．To appeal to people to treasure animals. |
| B．To inform readers of a special friendship. |
| C．To demonstrate the history of bringing up pets. |
| D．To compare friendship between cross-species and same-species. |
2 . Steve Forest is a scientist. He’s standing on an island off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. Below him are several hundred penguins and their children. Forrest’s job is to count every one of them. It's snowing. There is a big wind, too. And their children won’t stay still. Penguins are great climbers. So Forrest and the team members must be too. And penguins aren't always clean.
Forrest has been coming to Antarctica every January for six years. He's helping count the area’s penguins. This will help researchers better understand the Antarctic environment. There used to be lots of penguins in Antarctica, “It's all because of climate change,” Heather J. Lynch says seriously. She is leading the research team. The team member Noah Strycker adds, “We know climate change is hitting the Antarctic Peninsula harder than anywhere else in the world. We are following the situation closely.”
Scientists think that warming waters do harm to krill, the tiny animals that penguins eat. This is bad for the sea life. But krill are hard to study, so researchers pay attention to penguins. They’re easier to follow. They return to the same place each year to lay eggs. If penguins aren't doing well , krill probably aren't either. “Penguins give us an idea about what is going on in the sea around us,” Forrest says.
This year, Lynch’s research team uses a drone to help them. They fly it over an area to take pictures to count penguins.
Counting penguins is quite necessary. The more we learn, the more we know about krill and the ocean animals that depend on them. When we understand them, we can start fixing them. We should consider carefully what Lynch says: “What’s happening in the Antarctic is happening everywhere.”
1. What is required of scientists like Forrest according to Paragraph 1?| A．Being clean. | B．Being good at math. |
| C．Being cool-headed. | D．Being skilled in climbing. |
| A．To protect this animal species from extinction. |
| B．To help find out how many krill might be living |
| C．To have a better knowledge of the Antarctic environment |
| D．To collect first-hand data for analyzing global warming. |
| A．Scientists. | B．Krill. | C．Penguins. | D．Ocean animals. |
| A．Penguins lay eggs in the same place on the island every year. |
| B．The penguin population is increasing due to climate change. |
| C．The penguin population determines the krill population. |
| D．Climate change is most obvious in the Antarctic Peninsula. |
