full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Philip Johns: The otters of Singapore — and other unexpected wildlife thriving in cities

Unscramble the Blue Letters


But this tells us something. It tells us something about how play has different functions for pups versus altdus. For pups, play is a way that they're figuring things out and they're learning. But for adults, they're jockeying for a position in the saoicl group. And that's why they don't give up their position of dominance.

I don't know if you noticed this, it was erlay in the video, but there's a monitor lizard that's watching the otters play. And it turns out this is pretty common. Monitor lizards and otters live in the same environments. They both eat fish, and they bump into each other all the time. And otters sometimes attack the monitor lizards, and sometimes they kill the monitor lizards, but not all the time. So my students waetnd to know when do otrtes attack? What conditions lead to the otters attacking sometimes but not other tiems. This is a pair of otters that are approaching a monitor lizard, and if you notice, the monitor lizard's frill is open, its throat frlil is open. It's in an aggressive posture right here. And in fact, just seconds after this putcire was taken, the monitor lrazid whipped its tail at the otters. So monitor lizards can also be aggressive. But most of the time, including here, they're rcienatg to the otters. What my students found after looking at dozens of these kinds of interactions, was that otters were more likely to be aggressive if there were pups around, and they were most likely to be asergisvge if there were more pups in a group than there were adults. So the otters are only aggressive to defend the pups. The otters are big and they're fast and smart, and they don't really have to worry about the monitor lizadrs very much. But the pups do because they're small and they're kind of dumb.

Open Cloze


But this tells us something. It tells us something about how play has different functions for pups versus ______. For pups, play is a way that they're figuring things out and they're learning. But for adults, they're jockeying for a position in the ______ group. And that's why they don't give up their position of dominance.

I don't know if you noticed this, it was _____ in the video, but there's a monitor lizard that's watching the otters play. And it turns out this is pretty common. Monitor lizards and otters live in the same environments. They both eat fish, and they bump into each other all the time. And otters sometimes attack the monitor lizards, and sometimes they kill the monitor lizards, but not all the time. So my students ______ to know when do ______ attack? What conditions lead to the otters attacking sometimes but not other _____. This is a pair of otters that are approaching a monitor lizard, and if you notice, the monitor lizard's frill is open, its throat _____ is open. It's in an aggressive posture right here. And in fact, just seconds after this _______ was taken, the monitor ______ whipped its tail at the otters. So monitor lizards can also be aggressive. But most of the time, including here, they're ________ to the otters. What my students found after looking at dozens of these kinds of interactions, was that otters were more likely to be aggressive if there were pups around, and they were most likely to be __________ if there were more pups in a group than there were adults. So the otters are only aggressive to defend the pups. The otters are big and they're fast and smart, and they don't really have to worry about the monitor _______ very much. But the pups do because they're small and they're kind of dumb.

Solution


  1. adults
  2. early
  3. picture
  4. lizard
  5. times
  6. reacting
  7. aggressive
  8. otters
  9. frill
  10. wanted
  11. lizards
  12. social

Original Text


But this tells us something. It tells us something about how play has different functions for pups versus adults. For pups, play is a way that they're figuring things out and they're learning. But for adults, they're jockeying for a position in the social group. And that's why they don't give up their position of dominance.

I don't know if you noticed this, it was early in the video, but there's a monitor lizard that's watching the otters play. And it turns out this is pretty common. Monitor lizards and otters live in the same environments. They both eat fish, and they bump into each other all the time. And otters sometimes attack the monitor lizards, and sometimes they kill the monitor lizards, but not all the time. So my students wanted to know when do otters attack? What conditions lead to the otters attacking sometimes but not other times. This is a pair of otters that are approaching a monitor lizard, and if you notice, the monitor lizard's frill is open, its throat frill is open. It's in an aggressive posture right here. And in fact, just seconds after this picture was taken, the monitor lizard whipped its tail at the otters. So monitor lizards can also be aggressive. But most of the time, including here, they're reacting to the otters. What my students found after looking at dozens of these kinds of interactions, was that otters were more likely to be aggressive if there were pups around, and they were most likely to be aggressive if there were more pups in a group than there were adults. So the otters are only aggressive to defend the pups. The otters are big and they're fast and smart, and they don't really have to worry about the monitor lizards very much. But the pups do because they're small and they're kind of dumb.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
otter watchers 5
monitor lizards 3
haw par 2
par villa 2
otters live 2
adult offspring 2
students wanted 2
monitor lizard 2
small fish 2
otter watching 2
lion city 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
haw par villa 2

Important Words


  1. adults
  2. aggressive
  3. approaching
  4. attack
  5. attacking
  6. big
  7. bump
  8. common
  9. conditions
  10. defend
  11. dominance
  12. dozens
  13. dumb
  14. early
  15. eat
  16. environments
  17. fact
  18. fast
  19. figuring
  20. fish
  21. frill
  22. functions
  23. give
  24. group
  25. including
  26. interactions
  27. jockeying
  28. kill
  29. kind
  30. kinds
  31. lead
  32. learning
  33. live
  34. lizard
  35. lizards
  36. monitor
  37. notice
  38. noticed
  39. open
  40. otters
  41. pair
  42. picture
  43. play
  44. position
  45. posture
  46. pretty
  47. pups
  48. reacting
  49. seconds
  50. small
  51. smart
  52. social
  53. students
  54. tail
  55. tells
  56. throat
  57. time
  58. times
  59. turns
  60. video
  61. wanted
  62. watching
  63. whipped
  64. worry