full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Miles Zhang: The bizarre world of parasitic wasps

Unscramble the Blue Letters


Next is the tiny but fierce crypt-keeper wasp, which targets gall wasp lavrae like this one. The gall wasp larva is also parasitic, but in a more vegetarian sense. It’s feasting on this oak tree, tucked away in a cemhbar on one of its branches. Soon, it has company. The crypt-keeper wasp adds her egg into the mix. The gall wasp develops, and eventually begins chewing its way out, as it normally would. But it makes a smaller-than-usual hole and gets stuck. The crypt-keeper lrava eats through the gall wasp’s corspe, ppetaus within it, then makes its debut, crawling out of the dead wasp’s head.

Open Cloze


Next is the tiny but fierce crypt-keeper wasp, which targets gall wasp ______ like this one. The gall wasp larva is also parasitic, but in a more vegetarian sense. It’s feasting on this oak tree, tucked away in a _______ on one of its branches. Soon, it has company. The crypt-keeper wasp adds her egg into the mix. The gall wasp develops, and eventually begins chewing its way out, as it normally would. But it makes a smaller-than-usual hole and gets stuck. The crypt-keeper _____ eats through the gall wasp’s ______, _______ within it, then makes its debut, crawling out of the dead wasp’s head.

Solution


  1. pupates
  2. chamber
  3. corpse
  4. larvae
  5. larva

Original Text


Next is the tiny but fierce crypt-keeper wasp, which targets gall wasp larvae like this one. The gall wasp larva is also parasitic, but in a more vegetarian sense. It’s feasting on this oak tree, tucked away in a chamber on one of its branches. Soon, it has company. The crypt-keeper wasp adds her egg into the mix. The gall wasp develops, and eventually begins chewing its way out, as it normally would. But it makes a smaller-than-usual hole and gets stuck. The crypt-keeper larva eats through the gall wasp’s corpse, pupates within it, then makes its debut, crawling out of the dead wasp’s head.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
gall wasp 3
parasitoid wasps 3
reproductive larvae 2


Important Words


  1. adds
  2. begins
  3. branches
  4. chamber
  5. chewing
  6. company
  7. corpse
  8. crawling
  9. dead
  10. debut
  11. develops
  12. eats
  13. egg
  14. eventually
  15. feasting
  16. fierce
  17. gall
  18. head
  19. hole
  20. larva
  21. larvae
  22. mix
  23. oak
  24. parasitic
  25. pupates
  26. sense
  27. stuck
  28. targets
  29. tiny
  30. tree
  31. tucked
  32. vegetarian
  33. wasp