1 . Leif Richardson, who is a conservation biologist, and I are out with the goal of piecing together a picture of where wild bees live, and which species are in trouble in the home range of a native bee called Crotch’s bumble bee (大黄蜂). That bee is protected by the state law, and it’s one of the many species under survey.
Our journey began at the foot of a mountain in Leo Carrillo State Park. It was a cloudy morning. We set off for a short hike, armed with bee nets and a cooler to cool any bees we would catch. It’s a harmless way to temporarily calm the bees, and to allow for more careful study and photos.
Just a minute later, as Richardson walked into a meadow (草地), I heard him scream, followed by a snake! He stood there frozen for a moment before backing away towards the path, and then the snake went away.
We were a little more careful with the possibilities then, as we prepared to catch our first bees. They were not hard to find—I could hear them buzzing everywhere, and soon Richardson said it was time for me to catch one.
He told me to pinch (捏住) the tip of my net and held it upright, while slowly lowering it over a flower where our bumble bee was standing. As soon as the bee realized what was going on, it buzzed furiously inside my net, and then slowly climbed up the net towards the tip right where my finger was.
It all seemed like a high possibility to get stung (被蜇). But Richardson assured me I would be fine. He had some advice for holding it. “You’re going to pinch harder than you think you need to, but not so hard that you hurt the bee.” As my fingertips got closer to the bee, it felt like I could hear it buzzing louder and louder. Richardson performed this whole process in seconds. For me, on the other hand, it was a nervous act of much concentration. But it paid off—and soon, I got my very first bee!
1. What did Richardson come across on the way?| A．A sudden rain. | B．A snake. | C．A bee net. | D．A cooler. |
| A．The process of bee-catching. | B．The present situation of bumble bees. |
| C．The challenge of finding a bumble bee. | D．The purpose of studying bumble bees. |
| A．He failed. | B．He got stung. | C．He was nervous. | D．He was professional. |
| A．A Love of Nature | B．A New Law for Bumble Bee |
| C．An Outing for Bumble Bee | D．A Trip to Leo Carrillo State Park |
2 . When you hear the word “shapeshifting (变身)”, you may think of magic in some movies and not the climate. But that’s what animals are doing to go on living in the world.
A new study shows that some animals are slowly growing larger beaks, legs and ears. In this way they can cool themselves down more easily as the Earth gets warmer. When we talk about the climate change, we often ask “What can humans do with this?” “How can we live in the future?” “But we should know that animals also have to face these changes,” said Sara Ryding, from Deakin University, Australia. If animals do nothing to keep their normal body temperature, they will die.
In one example, the beaks of some kinds of Australian parrots have grown 4 to 10 percent larger. The study says it has a lot to do with the hotter summer over the years. There are other similar examples. Wood mice have longer tails and bats in warm climates have bigger wings.
Although the changes are still small, they could be common as the weather becomes hotter. “Body parts like ears may become bigger, so we might be able to see a real Dumbo (big-eared elephant from a Disney cartoon) in the near future,” Ryding told the reporters.
1. Why do animals grow bigger body parts?| A．To become stronger. | B．To enjoy a better life. |
| C．To find food easily. | D．To keep normal body temperature. |
| A．2. | B．3. | C．4. | D．5. |
| A．Changes. | B．Tails. | C．Wings. | D．Examples. |
| A．Why climate changes so much. | B．When the climate starts to change. |
| C．How animals deal with hotter weather. | D．What the weather will be like in the future. |
3 . You may have recently seen a video from the Beijing Wildlife Zoo going viral(走红). 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(幼兽), making up a strange but loving family, according to zoo officials. If you think this is a bit too wild, just remember that cross-species friendship has been common for centuries. People have domesticated(驯养) many animals, especially cats and dogs, and formed bonds with them as pets. Perhaps you even have a pet yourself.
There are many other examples of cross-species friendships in captivity(圈养). At an animal sanctuary(庇护所) in Santiago Chile, a kitten named Marina and a piglet named Laura formed a friendship after they both came to the park. As neither animal had a mother sanctuary staff said they immediately bonded when they met. Laura had been rescued from a slaughterhouse(屠宰场) 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(领地) 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 level 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 do in same-species relationships. Some dogs don’t like every other dog. Animals are very selective(严格筛选的) about the other individuals who they let into their lives.”
1. Why has the video attracted many people’s attention?| A．It presents a fighting picture between animals. |
| B．It tells us how to live with animals better. |
| C．It inspires people to raise animals as pets. |
| D．It shows a harmony scene between cross-species animals. |
| A．The different places where they were born. |
| B．The different ways that they were rescued. |
| C．The same fate that they had no mother. |
| D．The same time when they came to the park. |
| A．Animals in the wild have no need to make friends. |
| B．Animals’ friendships are related to where they live to some degree. |
| C．Animals may lose interest in making friends when their eating needs are met. |
| D．Animals in the zoo prefer to make friends mainly because it takes no time and energy. |
| A．Animals take choosing their friends they’ll make very seriously. |
| B．Cross-species relationships are different from same-species relationships. |
| C．Dogs are the most typical example of close cross-species relationships. |
| D．Animals from same-species have no difficulty in becoming friends. |
4 . A fisherman I know named Joar Hesten called me late in April last year. A beluga whale was swimming around his boat near the northern tip of Norway. It appeared to be wrapped in a tight harness (套子), and Hesten didn’t know what to do. Belugas are usually found in groups in areas with ice and glaciers (冰川) —rarely alone along the Norwegian coast. As a marine biologist, I knew that the harness needed to be removed as soon as possible. I had no idea how puzzling it would turn out to be.
We contacted the local government. When inspector JørgenRee Wiig and his crew met with the fishing boat, they doubted Joar Hesten had clearly been trained. The mystery deepened when he got into the water to remove the belt. Attached to the harness were a camera mount (支撑架) and clips with the words (in English) “Equipment St. Petersburg.” The stuff didn’t look like anything that a scientist would use to track whales. The rescuers and I wondered whether he’d been trained for a special purpose. We named him Hvaldimir—the Norwegian word for “whale”.
A week after his discovery, Hvaldimir followed a sailboat to Hammerfest harbor, about 25 miles from where he was first spotted. He was thin: He wasn’t eating on his own and seemed unlikely to survive in the wild. Later the authorities decided to feed him; his meals became daily tourist attractions in Hammerfest. Hvaldimir became so popular in Hammerfest that rules had to be posted for interacting with him.
Yet when I slipped into the water to examine Hvaldimir, I was most struck by his friendliness—and his loneliness. During our swim together, Hvaldimir pulled off one of my flippers (脚蹼), which sank into the deep. I shouted to him underwater, and he dived for it. A few minutes later, he returned with my flipper balanced on his nose and presented it to me.
In June Hvaldimir left Hammerfest, in much better shape than when he arrived. Since then he has traveled along the coast of northern Norway, apparently feeding himself.
1. What endangered the whale most according to the author?| A．Getting separated from its group. |
| B．Being spotted by humans. |
| C．Being caught by the harness. |
| D．Being driven away from his familiar surroundings. |
| A．His poor condition. | B．His mysterious identity. |
| C．His strange tracks. | D．His faraway birthplace. |
| A．He was taken good care of in a zoo. |
| B．He was transported there by a fishing ship. |
| C．He was well trained to entertain humans. |
| D．He might feel comfortable with the presence of humans. |
| A．To test its hearing. |
| B．To express his anger to it. |
| C．To ask it to pick up his flipper. |
| D．To prove his training was a success. |
5 . Songbirds do have a perfect voice. Every species of bird wakes up at a very particular time in the morning and begins to sing. This is because each species has its own specific waking stimulus (刺激), which is linked to the brightness of the sunlight.
Like human beings have to learn to speak, birds also have to learn how to sing. They do this in several stages. First, they practise voices and sounds, which is comparable to the early stage in human language development. During the second stage, the birds practise their songs for eight to nine months, until memory and practice match up. The singing is strengthened during the final stage.
Although nightingales got their name as a result of their singing at night, not all nightingales sing at night. Generally, both males and females sing during the day. The night song is used mainly for seeking partners. After succeeding in attracting a female, the male nightingale falls silent and doesn't start his song again until the early morning.
Birds are seasonal singers. We only hear numerous kinds of bird concerts between spring and high summer. This is the time when birds are looking for partners, and when the males aim to impress the females with their song and mark out their territory at the same time. However, even after they have found a partner, male birds continue to sing, because this is the time when they are showing their offspring (幼崽) how to sing.
Birds don’t all sing as well as others, not even within a species. The song of a bird in London will be quite different from that of a bird in Paris or Berlin. Although the members of each bird species share a vocabulary of sounds, dialect differences are quite common. The individual dialects are not natural but are learnt while the birds are children that adopt the dialect of their parents. The young birds always sing as well or as badly as their teachers, because the adults on whom they model themselves vary in style and talent from region to region.
1. What role does the brightness of sunlight play in birds’ singing?| A．It makes them learn songs easily. |
| B．It affects where they hold concerts. |
| C．It leads them to find abundant food. |
| D．It determines when they begin to sing. |
| A．To mark its territory | B．To teach its offspring |
| C．To draw female’s attention | D．To drive enemies away |
| A．After they leave their homes | B．Before they find partners |
| C．When they are still young | D．When they become grown-up |
| A．The varieties of Birdsong |
| B．The science of Birds’ singing |
| C．The living environment of Birds |
| D．The dialects of Bird Communication |
6 . We know that many animals do not stay in one place. Birds, fish and other animals move from one place to another at a certain time. They move for different reasons: most of them move to find food more easily, but others move to get away from places that are too crowded.
When cold weather comes, many birds move to warmer places to find food. Some fishes give birth in warm water and move to cold water to feed. The most famous migration (迁移) is probably the migration of fish, which is called “salmon”. This fish is born in fresh water but it travels many miles to salt water. There it spends its life. When it is old, it returns to its birthplace in fresh water. Then it gives birth and dies. In northern Europe, there is a kind of mouse. They leave their mountain homes when they become too crowded. They move down to the low land. Sometimes they move all the way to the seaside, and many of them are killed when they fall into the sea.
Recently (近来), scientists have studied the migration of a kind of lobster (龙虾). Every year, when the season of the bad weather arrives, the lobsters get into a long line and start to walk across the floor of the ocean. Nobody knows why they do this, and nobody knows where they go.
So, sometimes we know why humans and animals move from one place to another, but at other times we don’t. Maybe living things just like to travel.
1. Why do most animals move from one place to another at a certain time?| A．To give birth. | B．To enjoy warmer weather. |
| C．To find food more easily. | D．To find beautiful places. |
| A．They give birth | B．The place gets too crowded |
| C．The weather is bad | D．They haven’t enough food |
| A．The lobsters move to the fresh water. |
| B．The lobsters move at a certain time. |
| C．The lobsters move to the undersea. |
| D．The lobsters move to find more food. |
| A．Animals move to find food more easily. |
| B．The migration of salmons is the most famous. |
| C．Animals move because they like to travel. |
| D．Animals move for known or unknown reasons. |
While both solar panels and plant leaves harvest energy from the sun, a team at Princeton University took biomimicry (仿生学) in solar panels a step further by adding folds to solar cells. The folds look like the natural wrinkles found in leaves, channeling more light into the cell. The researchers claimed in 2015 that the leaf-like cells generated 47 percent more electricity than those without folds.
Self-Cleaning Paint
The surface of the lotus (莲) plant’s leaves gets rid of dirt and water so well that this self-cleaning quality was named the “lotus effect” in 1977. In 1999, the German building company Sto released an outdoor paint called Lotusan. When dried, the paint’s surface is similar to that of the lotus leaf to shed water and dirt off immediately.
Bullet Trains
The Shinkansen Bullet Train in Japan is known for its aerodynamic shape that decreases the amount of sound the train makes while entering and exiting tunnels at speeds of 150 to 200 mph. The trains were modeled on a bird that hunts fish by diving into bodies of water. The shape of the train also allows it to travel 10 percent faster with about 15 percent less electricity.
Wetsuits
Unlike whales, beavers (河狸) don’t have layers of fat to keep them warm when they dive into icy water. Instead, their thick fur traps air among the individual hairs, keeping the mammals warm and dry. In 2016,a team of engineers at MIT sought to copy this quality in a wetsuit covered with rubber “hairs”, specifically designed for watersports athletes like surfers. Just like beavers, the athletes would be kept warm by hair trapped on the outside of the suit.
1. Which item is a brainchild of a German company?| A．Solar Panels. | B．Self-Cleaning Paint. |
| C．Bullet Trains. | D．Wetsuits. |
| A．By shedding water immediately. | B．By thickening the layers of the suit. |
| C．By adding special hairs to trap heat. | D．By self-heating the outside of the suit. |
| A．They are nature -inspired. | B．They increase fuel efficiency. |
| C．They are environmentally-friendly. | D．They generate no economic returns. |
8 . When we first started researching ecotourism in Spain, we were surprised to see how many amazing opportunities it offered for outdoor recreation.
Sierra Nevada National Park
Being the largest national park in Spain, it offers a lot more than the skiing for which it is best known. With 20+ peaks over 3,000 meters tall, the park has spectacular scenery, as well as numerous natural mineral springs and more than 50 mountain lakes. The park’s diverse ecosystems are home to 2,100 plant species (60 of which are unique to the area).
Somiedo Natural Park
Somiedo Natural Park is the only place where you can see Cantabrian Brown Bears in the wild. They are known as “the littlest grizzly (灰熊)”. Spain ’s Brown Bear Foundation has been a leading force in preserving the troubled population. Thankfully, their numbers have risen in recent years to around 150 bears.
Cantabrian Coast
Cantabrian coast has 17 caves full of Palaeolithic Cave Art dating back to 35,000 — 9.000 BA. The most famous of these is Altamira Cave, which is known as the “Sistine Chapel of Quaternary Art”. The art there includes hundreds of animals that were created some 14,000 years ago. The number of visitors is limited to 9,000 per year.
Cabrera National Park
This 100 square km park is about as remote a destination as any nature lover could hope to visit. Due to its isolation, the coastal landscape of these 19 islands has remained relatively unchanged. The area is perfect for watching wildlife, scuba diving, and simply surrounding yourself in the beauty of nature. Access to the park is limited to just 200 people a day to minimize environmental impact.
1. What can visitors do in Sierra Nevada National Park?| A．Go skiing. | B．Watch wildlife. | C．Enjoy cave art. | D．Swim in mountain lakes. |
| A．Sierra Nevada National Park. |
| B．Somiedo Natural Park. |
| C．Cantabrian Coast. |
| D．Cabrera National Park. |
| A．They are remote. |
| B．They attract diving lovers. |
| C．They have ancient art. |
| D．They limit the number of visitors. |
9 . There are many ecosystems that are truly suffering from degradation. The solution is that they can be restored by re-introducing several animal species. The United Nations funded a study that shows that if you introduce 20 specific large mammals you can successfully restore a lot of the planet.
Some roles that species play in the environment are critical, so the loss of any of these can harm the world. So that means that on the other hand, re-introducing a species can produce positive results. When a few wolves were re-introduced to Yellowstone Park is one of the most cited examples. There is no doubt that the re-introduced wolves did restore the ecosystem.
Dr. Carly, a scientist, along with her team, was able to identify 13 herbivores and 7 predators that if re-introduced, could help restore a lot of what we’ve destroyed in nature. One species can benefit its environment in a dramatic way, helping create more soil insects and worms.
The team compared environments from 500 years ago to conditions of modern environments to know how travel and the industrial revolution have influenced the planet. And at last they figured out that only 16% of the world still has undamaged wild mammal communities and just 6% looks similar to what it looked like pre-1500.
They suggested that a 54% expansion in territory home to undamaged mammal communities can easily be accomplished, especially in South America and northern areas of Africa. In Europe, re-introducing beaver, bison, wolf, and reindeer could really make a dramatic impact. However, just wolves and wild horses could make a difference to Asia.
“Our recommendations may not be suitable everywhere in the world — local assessments will judge if hunting pressures or the lack of adequate preys mean other issues need addressing before reintroducing them. However, our findings show there are huge areas of the world that could be suitable for large mammal restoration if other factors are managed,” said Dr. Carly.
1. What role did the wolves play in Yellowstone Park?| A．Protecting nature from being destroyed. | B．Keeping the balance of the ecosystem. |
| C．Creating better soil for other animals. | D．Attracting more visits to the famous park. |
| A．To find out some suitable large mammals. |
| B．To find out how travel and the industrial revolution have affected the earth. |
| C．To summarize the influence of human’s activities. |
| D．To find out the nature of the undamaged environment. |
| A．Reindeer. | B．Bison. | C．Wolf. | D．Beaver. |
| A．Make a law to ban hunting. | B．Provide sufficient food for them. |
| C．Solve other environmental problems. | D．Assess the potential surroundings. |
10 . In Rachel Carson’s classic best-seller about ecological threats, Silent Spring, the author asked us to imagine what it would be like to awaken in the morning in which no birds sang. She wrote with grace, and she made us feel the loss. But how well have we acted on Carson’s warnings?
We haven’t been very successful, and neither have birds. A 2019 study led by Cornell University scientist Kenneth V. Rosenberg, which analyzed decades of data on North American birds, showed that the continent’s bird populations had dwindled since 1970. Grasslands were the hardest hit, with a documented loss of more than 700 million breeding individuals — a decline of more than 50 percent. The net loss amounted to nearly three billion individual birds, a figure that sparked a campaign with tips on what people can do to save them.
Given these data, it is tempting to conclude that despite the brilliance of her writing, Carson did not succeed in protecting birds. However, the 2019 bird study also suggests that protecting biodiversity is not a lost cause (败局已定的事). One important exception in the dark picture the scientists painted is wetlands and the waterfowl (水禽) that inhabit them. There bird abundance increased 13 percent. What distinguishes wetlands from other ecological areas? One answer is that wetlands have been especially shielded (保护) from excessive industrial activities for a long time. They are under the protection of the local and federal government.
The other encouraging exception in the bird study was raptors, a group that includes the majestic bald eagle. Bald eagles were on the verge of extinction at the time when Carson wrote, but they recovered in large part as a result of the ban on DDT, a substance used for killing insects.
A news story published by the Audubon Society notes that the numbers show that taking steps like wildlife management, habitat restoration and political action can be effective in saving species. Scientists have documented the current threat to biodiversity. Their data also show that if we act on this information, maybe we can change the outcome.
1. What does the underlined word “dwindled” in paragraph 2 mean?| A．Continued. | B．Appeared. | C．Decreased. | D．Arisen. |
| A．They have been better protected from destruction. | B．They have lost over half of their animals. |
| C．They’re more popular with birds. | D．They’re much larger in size. |
| A．To tell about the majestic bald eagles. | B．To prove the ban on DDT is effective. |
| C．To draw more attention to this group of birds. | D．To show successful cases about bird protection. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Optimistic. | C．Ambiguous. | D．Pessimistic. |
