Nghe TOEFL

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Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class. The professor is discussing animal communication. Professor: Today, we're going to talk about the honeybee's waggle dance, a fascinating example of symbolic communication. Unlike many animals that use simple signals like alarm calls, honeybees convey precise information about distance and direction to a food source. The dance is performed on the vertical surface of the hive. The angle of the dance relative to gravity indicates the direction of the food source in relation to the sun. For example, if the bee dances straight up, the food is directly toward the sun. The duration of the waggle run, the part where the bee wiggles its abdomen, communicates the distance. A longer waggle run means the food is farther away. Interestingly, the accuracy of this dance diminishes if the hive is overcrowded or if the food source is very close, say less than 50 meters. In such cases, bees may switch to a simpler round dance, which only indicates that food is nearby without specifying direction. This shows how bees adapt their communication methods to the context.