Text 7 animal teamwork

People work together for a simple reason – it makes difficult job easier. For similar reason, animals also use teamwork. In animal groups, each individual works to help the group as a whole.

Some species developed intelligent ways of gathering food. Coastal bottlenose dolphins⃰ have developed a unique way of catching fish, which requires extraordinary teamwork. The dolphins follow a school⃰ of fish until they are near a bank. Then, they swim towards the fish creating a wave, which pushes the fish out of the water and onto the bank. The dolphins end up half out of the water lying on the bank where they eat the helpless fish. In order for this to work, each dolphin must rush towards the bank at exactly the same time and the same speed, otherwise, the wave won’t be strong enough. How they decide, when to go and who gives the order in unknown, but a high level of communication definitely exists between them.

Animals can’t talk but some species have developed ways of letting others know where food is. For example, if a bee finds nectar, it has two ways of informing its hive. It may create a trail⃰ with the scent⃰ of the nectar. When the other bees pick up the smell, they can follow it to the nectar. Or the bee may perform the “waggle⃰ dance”. The other bees understand what the dance means, and then they work as a team to collect the nectar.

Hunting can be difficult and even dangerous to one animal. It also takes a lot of energy to kill prey, which is wasted, if the prey escapes. Hunting in packs makes predators more efficient. A pack of wolves, for example, can kill a large animal such as a deer or moose⃰, while one wolf can kill only a small animal. Wolf packs, which consist of two to twenty wolves, may surprise their prey or pursue it for hours before attacking it. If there are several animals that the pack follows, the pack will choose the weakest one because it will take less effort to catch it. In the end, the wolves share the meat with each other.

As well as food, animals need somewhere to live. Some animals simply move to the best place they can find, but others build a home for themselves. A particularly intelligent builder is the beaver⃰. Beavers live by rivers and streams and build dams⃰ to create pools of deep water, which help keep their homes safe. The whole colony about five to six members, cooperates to create the dam with trees they’ve cut down using their sharp, long front teeth, then construct their home, which looks like a stick igloo.⃰

Animals also depend on each other to keep safe. For example, they might have a signal that lets the group know when a threat is nearby. When an ant is crushed it releases a scent called “alarm pheromone”⃰ that signals to other ants to come to crushed ant and attack the enemy. Larger animals may warn other animals in the group using sounds. Wolves, for example, will growl⃰ at anything that is threatening their pack, and get ready to attack. Wolves also warn each other of danger by barking.

By living and working in groups, animals increase their chances of surviving in the wild. Studying a variety of animal group behaviour we can say for sure – teamwork works!

⃰bottlenose dolphins – дельфин афалина; a school of fish – косяк рыбы; trail – след; scent - аромат; waggle dance – виляющий танец (у пчел); moose – американский лось; beaver – бобер; dam - плотина; stick igloo иглу из веток, прутьев; alarm pheromone – феромон тревоги. TEXT 8 VICTIMS OF REPUTATION

Bats are the most numerous and successful groups of mammals that have ever lived on earth. Over 950 species are known to exist – that’s one quarter of all present day mammals. Bats have spread to almost every part of the world, from the Arctic to the stormy southern tip of South America.

However, bats all over the world are under pressure⃰ from a fast growing human population. Loss in suitable places to live, fall in food supply and environmental pollution⃰ are all making life increasingly difficult for many bat species.

Strangely, there are some wild creatures, which are in fact little or no threat to humans, but constantly disturb⃰ people by their presence and cause irrational⃰ fear. Among them are such animals as cockroaches, spiders, mice and, more often than not, bats. Exactly why bats should frighten so many of us is hard to understand, but they do have so many of the characteristics that people seem to find distressing in wild animals.

They are small, fast-moving, capable of sudden changes in direction and active at night. In addition to this, they have rapidly moving wings, an unpredictable⃰ way of flying and a strange, often frightening appearance. Given these characteristics, and the fact that bats often find suitable hiding places around human dwellings⃰, it is perhaps not surprising that human fears have been transformed into superstition⃰ and myth.

⃰pressure - давление; environmental pollution – загрязнение окружающей среды; disturb - беспокоить; irrational – иррациональный, безотчетный; unpredictable - непредсказуемый; human dwellings – человеческое жилье; superstition – предрассудок.