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 look at how some animals use signals to convey information, and we'll focus on a specific example: the honeybee's waggle dance. You might have heard that bees dance to tell other bees where to find nectar. But what's really interesting is the precision of this communication. The angle of the dance relative to the sun indicates the direction of the food source, and the duration of the waggle run signals the distance. However, recent studies have shown that bees adjust their dance based on the quality of the nectar. If the nectar is exceptionally rich, they dance more vigorously and for a longer time, which recruits more foragers. Conversely, if the nectar is low quality, the dance is shorter, and fewer bees are recruited. This suggests that bees are not just sending a simple message, but they are also encoding value judgments about the food source. So, the dance isn't just a map; it's also an advertisement.