1. Question: summarize the lecture and explain how animals prevent themselves from being attacked by predators.
The lecture is mainly about two animal defense behaviors, fooling predators and misleading, to avoid being eaten by predators. Two examples of a snake are given to help further explain these defense strategies. First, when facing threats, snakes often pretend to look more dangerous than they actually are. They become bigger in the part of its head and move fast, trying to bite predators. In fact, they don't really want to bite since their mouth is closed when they move. But snakes try to fool the predators and scare them away. If the first strategy doesn't work due to the persistence of the predator, then another strategy called misleading is applied. The snake will pretend to be dead and hope to be ignored by predator. The snake lies down to the ground, with belly upwards and mouth open, to mislead predators into believing the snake is dead. Since most predators are not interested in dead meat, they would run away for another meal. After a few minutes, the snake wakes up and survives for another day.
[解析]
W: Many animal species such as lizards, insects, fish, and snakes have evolved camouflage defenses to deter attack from their predators by visual, auditory or other means. Today, we are going to introduce two other common behaviors applied by animals to protect themselves from distinct predators. The strategies of these prey defenses are known as fooling predator and misleading.
Animals are attacked by predators and in response they have evolved a variety of defenses from being vulnerable to death. One of these behaviors is to fool the predator, which means to deceive predators into believing that danger is imminent for a few moments while the preys make their getaway. For example, snakes use several tactics to fool predators, usually starting with acting tougher than they really are. When threatened, a snake will pretend to strike out at its enemy by making its body look much larger and moving fast and trying to bite the predator. This might look very scary and scare off the predator, because they believe the snake is about to attack. But all of this is nothing more than a bluff.
This great acting is enough to fool many animals into looking elsewhere for a meal, but if the predator is persistent, the snake then tries its next trick, rolling onto its back and playing dead. This defense strategy of deterring predators is called misleading. At this point, some truly amazing things happen. The snake will open its mouth and lets its tongue hang out in order to show it that it is dying before its enemies. Many predators aren't interested in eating such a smelly meal; they will run away. All it can do now is lie motionlessly on its back and wait until the danger has passed. Then the snake will live another day.
These incredible behaviors are commonly applied by many animal species to protect themselves when facing danger.