托福口语 Task 4

Today, we're going to talk about a fascinating concept in animal behavior called 'tool use' — the ability of animals to use objects in their environment to achieve a goal. Contrary to popular belief, tool use is not limited to primates or birds like crows. It also appears in insects. My main point is that even tiny-brained insects can solve complex problems using tools, which suggests that tool use may be more widespread and less cognitively demanding than we once thought. Let me give you two examples. First, the digger wasp. When a female digger wasp prepares to lay her eggs, she digs a burrow and then hunts for a cricket. She stings it to paralyze it, drags it into the burrow, and lays her eggs on it. But before she closes the burrow, she picks up a small pebble with her mandibles and uses it to tamp down the soil, effectively sealing the entrance. This pebble acts as a tool to compact the earth. Second, consider the antlion. The antlion larva digs a conical pit in sandy soil to trap ants. When the pit walls are too loose and collapse, the antlion will pick up sand grains with its jaws and flick them out of the pit, using them as tools to clear and maintain its trap. In both cases, the insects are not just using their bodies; they are actively manipulating objects to achieve a specific purpose.