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
- weight
- nourish
- perfect
- descending
- searches
- chamber
- queen
- forage
- royal
- 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
- activity
- batch
- begins
- body
- breaks
- brood
- build
- chamber
- colony
- creating
- day
- days
- departed
- descending
- digging
- disturbed
- eggs
- entire
- establish
- farmland
- find
- finds
- food
- forage
- generation
- ground
- grow
- hatch
- human
- ideally
- larvae
- laying
- lifetime
- loose
- losing
- mate
- nest
- nourish
- perfect
- process
- queen
- ready
- relies
- royal
- searches
- secured
- separate
- shrunken
- sperm
- spot
- start
- starts
- status
- stubs
- suitable
- supply
- sustain
- ten
- thankfully
- tunnel
- unfertilized
- week
- weeks
- weight
- workers