full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Rebecca Tarvin: Why don't poisonous animals poison themselves?

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Bombardier beetles use the first approach. They store idtgrnieens for their pioson in two separate chambers. When they’re threatened, the valve between the crbamehs opens and the substances combine in a violent chemical ritcaeon that sends a corrosive spray shooting out of the glands, passing through a hardened chamber that protects the beetle’s internal tissues. Similarly, jellyfish package their venom safely in harpoon-like suteutcrrs called nematocysts. And venomous snakes store their flesh-eating, blood-clotting compounds in specialized cmeottrnpmas that only have one exit: through the fangs and into their prey or partdoer.

Open Cloze

Bombardier beetles use the first approach. They store ___________ for their ______ in two separate chambers. When they’re threatened, the valve between the ________ opens and the substances combine in a violent chemical ________ that sends a corrosive spray shooting out of the glands, passing through a hardened chamber that protects the beetle’s internal tissues. Similarly, jellyfish package their venom safely in harpoon-like __________ called nematocysts. And venomous snakes store their flesh-eating, blood-clotting compounds in specialized ____________ that only have one exit: through the fangs and into their prey or ________.

Solution

  1. compartments
  2. ingredients
  3. predator
  4. poison
  5. chambers
  6. structures
  7. reaction

Original Text

Bombardier beetles use the first approach. They store ingredients for their poison in two separate chambers. When they’re threatened, the valve between the chambers opens and the substances combine in a violent chemical reaction that sends a corrosive spray shooting out of the glands, passing through a hardened chamber that protects the beetle’s internal tissues. Similarly, jellyfish package their venom safely in harpoon-like structures called nematocysts. And venomous snakes store their flesh-eating, blood-clotting compounds in specialized compartments that only have one exit: through the fangs and into their prey or predator.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
bombardier beetle 2
poison dart 2
dart frogs 2
evolved resistance 2

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
poison dart frogs 2

Important Words

  1. approach
  2. beetles
  3. bombardier
  4. called
  5. chamber
  6. chambers
  7. chemical
  8. combine
  9. compartments
  10. compounds
  11. corrosive
  12. fangs
  13. glands
  14. hardened
  15. ingredients
  16. internal
  17. jellyfish
  18. nematocysts
  19. opens
  20. package
  21. passing
  22. poison
  23. predator
  24. prey
  25. protects
  26. reaction
  27. safely
  28. sends
  29. separate
  30. shooting
  31. similarly
  32. snakes
  33. specialized
  34. spray
  35. store
  36. structures
  37. substances
  38. threatened
  39. tissues
  40. valve
  41. venom
  42. venomous
  43. violent