full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Kenny Coogan: This weird trick will help you summon an army of worms


Unscramble the Blue Letters


This was it. Over hundreds of thousands of yares, these earthworms elevovd a behavior that helped them escape a top predator. arbenogvoud, they were immune to the moles, which usually stayed subterranean. But then hanmus came along. And, funnily enough, we aren’t even the only ones that take advantage of this behavior. Herring gulls and wood turtles also sometimes drum their feet on the earth to summon womrs. So then why does this behavior persist?

Scientists think it’s beneficial for a prey species to maintain its adaptations against a more frequent predator, even if it makes it more vrunablele to a raerr one. Many insects, for example, use flight to avoid predation. But painted redstarts take advantage of this: they boldly flash their colorful tail and wing feehrtas to elicit this response, then catch the isencts as they try to fly away. It seems the prey species’ response riemnas simply because it’s beneficial most of the time.

Open Cloze


This was it. Over hundreds of thousands of _____, these earthworms _______ a behavior that helped them escape a top predator. ___________, they were immune to the moles, which usually stayed subterranean. But then ______ came along. And, funnily enough, we aren’t even the only ones that take advantage of this behavior. Herring gulls and wood turtles also sometimes drum their feet on the earth to summon _____. So then why does this behavior persist?

Scientists think it’s beneficial for a prey species to maintain its adaptations against a more frequent predator, even if it makes it more __________ to a _____ one. Many insects, for example, use flight to avoid predation. But painted redstarts take advantage of this: they boldly flash their colorful tail and wing ________ to elicit this response, then catch the _______ as they try to fly away. It seems the prey species’ response _______ simply because it’s beneficial most of the time.

Solution


  1. insects
  2. years
  3. vulnerable
  4. evolved
  5. aboveground
  6. remains
  7. feathers
  8. worms
  9. rarer
  10. humans

Original Text


This was it. Over hundreds of thousands of years, these earthworms evolved a behavior that helped them escape a top predator. Aboveground, they were immune to the moles, which usually stayed subterranean. But then humans came along. And, funnily enough, we aren’t even the only ones that take advantage of this behavior. Herring gulls and wood turtles also sometimes drum their feet on the earth to summon worms. So then why does this behavior persist?

Scientists think it’s beneficial for a prey species to maintain its adaptations against a more frequent predator, even if it makes it more vulnerable to a rarer one. Many insects, for example, use flight to avoid predation. But painted redstarts take advantage of this: they boldly flash their colorful tail and wing feathers to elicit this response, then catch the insects as they try to fly away. It seems the prey species’ response remains simply because it’s beneficial most of the time.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
worm grunting 3
florida panhandle 2



Important Words


  1. aboveground
  2. adaptations
  3. advantage
  4. avoid
  5. behavior
  6. beneficial
  7. boldly
  8. catch
  9. colorful
  10. drum
  11. earth
  12. earthworms
  13. elicit
  14. escape
  15. evolved
  16. feathers
  17. feet
  18. flash
  19. flight
  20. fly
  21. frequent
  22. funnily
  23. gulls
  24. helped
  25. herring
  26. humans
  27. hundreds
  28. immune
  29. insects
  30. maintain
  31. moles
  32. painted
  33. persist
  34. predation
  35. predator
  36. prey
  37. rarer
  38. redstarts
  39. remains
  40. response
  41. scientists
  42. simply
  43. species
  44. stayed
  45. subterranean
  46. summon
  47. tail
  48. thousands
  49. time
  50. top
  51. turtles
  52. vulnerable
  53. wing
  54. wood
  55. worms
  56. years