full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Walter R. Tschinkel: Mating frenzies, sperm hoards, and brood raids the life of a fire ant queen

Unscramble the Blue Letters

Having secured a lifetime supply of sperm from her departed mate, our new queen must now single-handedly start an entire colony. Descending to the gounrd, she schreeas for a suitable spot to build her nest. Ideally, she can find somewhere with loose, easy-to-dig soil— like farmland already disturbed by human activity. Once she finds the pecfret spot, she breaks off her wings— creating the stubs that establish her roayl status. Then, she starts digging a ddesicenng tunnel ending in a caembhr. Here the queen begins laying her eggs, about ten per day, and the first larvae hatch within a week. Over the next three weeks, the new queen relies on a separate batch of unfertilized eggs to nsoruih both herself and her brood, losing half her body wigeht in the process. Thankfully, after about 20 days, these larvae grow into the first generation of workers, ready to fgaore for food and sustain their shrunken qeeun.

Open Cloze

Having secured a lifetime supply of sperm from her departed mate, our new queen must now single-handedly start an entire colony. Descending to the ______, she ________ for a suitable spot to build her nest. Ideally, she can find somewhere with loose, easy-to-dig soil— like farmland already disturbed by human activity. Once she finds the _______ spot, she breaks off her wings— creating the stubs that establish her _____ status. Then, she starts digging a __________ tunnel ending in a _______. Here the queen begins laying her eggs, about ten per day, and the first larvae hatch within a week. Over the next three weeks, the new queen relies on a separate batch of unfertilized eggs to _______ both herself and her brood, losing half her body ______ in the process. Thankfully, after about 20 days, these larvae grow into the first generation of workers, ready to ______ for food and sustain their shrunken _____.

Solution

  1. weight
  2. nourish
  3. perfect
  4. descending
  5. searches
  6. chamber
  7. queen
  8. forage
  9. royal
  10. ground

Original Text

Having secured a lifetime supply of sperm from her departed mate, our new queen must now single-handedly start an entire colony. Descending to the ground, she searches for a suitable spot to build her nest. Ideally, she can find somewhere with loose, easy-to-dig soil— like farmland already disturbed by human activity. Once she finds the perfect spot, she breaks off her wings— creating the stubs that establish her royal status. Then, she starts digging a descending tunnel ending in a chamber. Here the queen begins laying her eggs, about ten per day, and the first larvae hatch within a week. Over the next three weeks, the new queen relies on a separate batch of unfertilized eggs to nourish both herself and her brood, losing half her body weight in the process. Thankfully, after about 20 days, these larvae grow into the first generation of workers, ready to forage for food and sustain their shrunken queen.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
queen begins 2
brood pile 2

Important Words

  1. activity
  2. batch
  3. begins
  4. body
  5. breaks
  6. brood
  7. build
  8. chamber
  9. colony
  10. creating
  11. day
  12. days
  13. departed
  14. descending
  15. digging
  16. disturbed
  17. eggs
  18. entire
  19. establish
  20. farmland
  21. find
  22. finds
  23. food
  24. forage
  25. generation
  26. ground
  27. grow
  28. hatch
  29. human
  30. ideally
  31. larvae
  32. laying
  33. lifetime
  34. loose
  35. losing
  36. mate
  37. nest
  38. nourish
  39. perfect
  40. process
  41. queen
  42. ready
  43. relies
  44. royal
  45. searches
  46. secured
  47. separate
  48. shrunken
  49. sperm
  50. spot
  51. start
  52. starts
  53. status
  54. stubs
  55. suitable
  56. supply
  57. sustain
  58. ten
  59. thankfully
  60. tunnel
  61. unfertilized
  62. week
  63. weeks
  64. weight
  65. workers