托福听力

🎧 听力原文

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 various ways animals communicate, and I want to focus on a fascinating example: the honeybee's waggle dance. When a worker bee discovers a good food source, it returns to the hive and performs a series of movements—a kind of dance—that tells other bees the direction and distance of that food. The dance consists of a straight run, during which the bee waggles its abdomen, followed by a turn to the right, back to the starting point, then a straight run again, and a turn to the left. The angle of the straight run relative to vertical indicates the angle of the food source relative to the sun. The duration of the waggle run indicates distance—the longer the run, the farther the food. Interestingly, research has shown that bees can even adjust their dance if the sun moves behind a cloud, using a kind of internal compass. This is a remarkably sophisticated system, especially when you consider the bee's brain is the size of a grass seed.