Биология в современном мире. Учебное пособие

9.1.8 Exercise 8

Listen to the sentences and translate them into Russian.

1)Sunlight acted upon chemicals in the warm mud on the sea floor near the

land.

2)The sea gave birth to living matter.

3)It also played a part in bringing many of the great changes in the forms of

life.

4)The sea has left us the story of later changes, written in stone.

5)The sea has risen and fallen for billions of years before the one-celled beings appeared.

6)Waters fell back from the land leaving great dry beds of sea floor, which became rock.

7)Scientists find shells of dead sea creatures between rock layers even

today.

8)Life in the swamps had to change or die out.

9)A few fish learned to get oxygen from the air and not from the water; they being the first amphibians.

10)Mammals carried their young in their bodies and fed them with their own

milk.

9.1.9 Exercise 9

Speak on the beginning of life using as many facts as possible.

9.1.10 Exercise 10

Develop the discussion about the problem: ask questions; share your opinions. Use the following collogial expressions: I suppose (think, believe) that .., to my

mind ..; in my opinion; to interpret the results; to make a conclusion; it seems to me

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that ..; as I see the problem ..; I quite agree with you; It goes without saying (Само собой разумеется); I disagree with you; There is something in what you say.

9.2 Different ways of getting food

9.2.1 Exercise 1

Repeat the following words and expressions:

1)jelly-like bodies – медузообразные тела;

2)animal life – живые организмы;

3)dog-whelk – волнистый рожок (моллюск);

4)anemone – анемон;

5)an inch high – высотой в два дюйма (2,5 см.);

6)poisonous stinging threads – ядовитые жалящие нити;

7)barnacle – морская уточка (ракообразное);

8)sea-urchin – морской еж;

9)red-bearded sponge – красно-бородатая губка;

10)eagle-ray – скат-орляк;

11)phosphorescent fish-светящиеся рыбы.

9.2.2 Exercise 2

Listen to the text “Different ways of getting food” and write down as much information as possible.

There are more than 85,000 kinds of animal life in the sea. Some are soft creatures with jelly-like bodies, others have hard shells. There are creatures having a bony framework inside their bodies, and, of course, there are many sorts of true fishes with fins. Many living creatures that stay in the bottom of the sea have soft bodies (sea anemones), others have strong shells (dog whelks).

Many bottom creatures are brightly colored and have strange forms. Some have waving arms. Some have tubes like tree branches with which they can suck water into their soft bodies.

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Many of the creatures of the shallow bottom are attached to rocks or to the back of other animals. Many get their food by pumping sea water in and out of their bodies. Others get their food from green plants growing on undersea rocks. There are sea creatures who catch and eat tiny fish.

Some sea creatures gather in colonies and are sometimes an inch high. They feed on minerals in the water. Some sea creatures like sea anemones often ride on the backs of crabs and kill fish with their poisonous stinging threads.

Some bottom creatures do not wait for food to come to them but travel a long way to find something to eat.

There are bottom creatures (the barnacle, for example) that catch tiny bits of food with the help of the long hairy bristles on their legs.

The sea-urchin’s body is round. Its teeth are strong and can crush tiny shells. It feeds on tiny shells and on fish.

And so the shallow bottom of the warm waters is full of life. Soft-bodied creatures live here attached to one place all their lives. The red-bearded sponge opens a hundred hungry mouths sucking in the sea water from which it gets its food.

Just below is a rock covered with green plants.

Beyond are starfish with bright colours. The sea anemons look like flowers. They live on the sea floor and a sea-urchin nestles below them.

While phosphorescent fish get food on the surface, the powerful eagle ray dives to the sea floor to get its food. Its rays are huge. The powerful eagle ray uses them for propelling itself in its quick dive. When the eagle ray reaches the sea bottom, it sends up clouds of sand.

9.2.3 Exercise 3

Listen to the text for the second time and write down as many characteristic features of different creatures as you can.

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9.2.4 Exercise 4

Complete the following sentences with the information from the text read:

1)Some sea creatures have soft.….

2)Others have strong…..

3)Many bottom creatures are brightly…..

4)Some have waving…..

5)The others have tubes like tree…..

6)Soft-bodied creatures live in the shallow bottom attached…..

7)The sea anemones look like…..

8)The powerful eagle ray has huge…..

9.2.5 Exercise 5

Answer the questions:

1)What creatures live in the sea bottom?

2)In what way do different sea creatures get their food?

9.2.6 Exercise 6

Listen to some information and translate it into Russian:

1)Sea anemones often ride on the backs of crabs and kill fish with their poisonous stinging threads. They look like flowers and have soft bodies;

2)The barnacle catch tiny bits of food with the help of the long hairy bristles on their legs;

3)The sea-urchin’s body is round. Its teeth are strong and can crush tiny

shells. It feeds on tiny shells and on fish. Sea-urchins nestle below sea anemones;

4)The red-bearded sponge opens hungry mouths sucking in the sea water from which it gets its food;

5)Phosphorescent fish get food on the surface;

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6) The powerful eagle ray dives to the sea floor to get its food. Its rays are huge and it uses them to propel itself in its quick dive. When the eagle ray reaches the sea bottom, it sends up clouds of sand.

9.2.7 Exercise 7

Describe different sea creatures: sea anemone, barnacle, sea urchin, redbearded sponge, starfish, eagle ray.

9.2.8 Exercise 8

Speak about different ways of getting food by bottom sea creatures. Add, if you can, some additional information.

9.3 The struggle to stay alive

9.3.1 Exercise 1

Repeat the following words and expressions:

1)meat-eater – мясоед;

2)to defend oneself from enemies – защищаться от врагов;

3)octopus – осьминог;

4)spines like needles – колючки, похожие на иглы;

5)narrow pipe-fish – узкая рыба-игла;

6)sea hare – морской заяц (моллюск);

7)ink – coloured substance – вещество чернильного цвета;

8)silvery-grey – серебристо-серый.

9.3.2 Exercise 2

Listen to the text “The struggle to stay alive”. Enumerate all the ways, sea creatures use, to stay alive and not to be eaten by other creatures.

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The creatures of the sea spend much time eating or trying to stay alive and not to be eaten by other sea creatures. It is not easy to stay alive and not to be eaten in such a place as the sea-bed. Almost all sea creatures are meat-eaters, but the very small animals.

Sea creatures have developed many interesting ways of defending themselves from their enemies. First of all the size of the creature plays a role in its struggle to stay alive. But it is not always the main thing. Sometimes a small free-swimming fish can swim away from a large creature. Some fish have developed great speed in swimming: from 25 to 50 miles an hour.

The octopus is afraid of many other sea creatures and it tries to swim away from them when it is in the open sea. The octopus having a thick cloak on, always has it on when in the open sea. But when the octopus comes down to the sea bed it folds away its cloak and stretches out its long arms. With the help of the arms it catches blue crabs.

The animals of the shallow bottom cannot save themselves by swimming away from attack. So, they defend themselves in other different ways.

Many of the bottom creatures have hard shells which they shut when danger is coming. Others send up clouds of sand or streams of water. With the help of a cloud of sand or stream of water they can hide themselves from the enemy. Some have sharp spines looking like needles. Others spend most of their lives hiding in the sand.

But the best way to be safe is to change one’s shape and colour. Very many sea creatures can change their shape or colour. They take on the shape or colour of the things surrounding them. The narrow pipe-fish, for example hides from the enemy by standing upright among sea grass not to be seen and eaten.

Some animals have shells the colour of sand and it’s difficult to see their shells in sand.

Colour helps sea creatures in their struggle against their enemies at every level of sea life. At the surface, where there is much sun, most fish are blue, green or violet on their backs and silver-grey underneath. Most sea animals that live a thousand feet deep where the light is grey are silver-grey. In the deep sea, where no light reaches,

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the fish are brown, or black, or bright red which looks the same as black when everything around is dark.

A few creatures of the sea have unusual ways of defending themselves. Some of them are able to produce smoke screens, and they hide themselves behind such smoke screens. The sea-hare is a mollusk named for its long antennae which look like rabbit’s ears. It struggles against its enemies by sending up a stream of dark, inkcolored substance.

9.3.3 Exercise 3

Listen to the text for the second time and write down the detailed information about octopus defending itself from enemies.

9.3.4 Exercise 4

Look through the list of the words from the text and use them in your own sentences describing the struggle of sea creatures to stay alive.

9.3.5 Exercise 5

Answer the questions:

1)What are the ways sea creatures developed to stay alive and not to be

eaten?

2)In what way does colour help sea creatures in their struggle against their

enemies?

9.3.6 Exercise 6

Speak about different ways of sea creatures struggle to stay alive.

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9.4 The endless chain of food

9.4.1 Exercise 1

Listen to the text and answer the following questions:

1)What do scientists call plankton?

2)Why is the plankton the most important link in the endless chain of food?

When new forms of life developed, the earlier forms didn’t disappear. The Sea today contains very many single-celled beings. Masses of tiny plants still make food from sunlight and sea water.

The masses of plants attract millions of animals almost as small as they are themselves. Many plants float near the surface, carried by the movements of the sea, small helpless animals need food. They are not only single-celled protozoa but also young lobsters and deep-sea fishes. The plants and tiny animals make up colonies, which scientists call plankton. The surface of some cold waters is covered with these moving masses which make food for the larger creatures of the sea.

In their growing time in spring and autumn plankton are so numerous that the sea becomes green, yellow and brown. At night some seas are lightened from the glow of a bluish light thrown off by many plankton creatures. Millions of tiny fish in this wandering mass eat the plants of the plankton. Baby fish that swim along with the plankton eat the tiny plants until they are strong and can swim fast. The largest masses of plankton are found near the west coasts of North and South America and Japan. There, especially in spring time, come free-swimming fish of the upper levels of the ocean. They eat millions of tiny animals living in the colony of plankton. Some of the fish also eat each other. Most animals of the sea live on fish or smaller animals. But the plant life of the plankton is the first and most important link in the endless chain of food.

9.4.2 Exercise 2

Listen to the text for the second time, write down the main information contained in it.

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9.4.3 Exercise 3

Define, if the following sentences correspond to the text. If not, correct them.

Use the phrases “I agree”, “I disagree”:

1)New forms of live developed, the earlier forms disappearing;

2)Tiny plants still make food from sunlight and sea water:

3)Small animals don’t need the plant food;

4)They are many-celled protozoa;

5)The plants and protozoa make up the plankton;

6)The plankton makes food for larger creatures in the sea;

7)Plankton doesn’t change its colour;

8)Baby fish eat the tiny plants of the plankton until they are strong and can swim fast;

9)The largest masses of the plankton can be found near the Black Sea;

10)The plant life of the plankton is the important link in the endless chain of

food.

9.4.4 Exercise 4

Using the following key-phrases from the text retell it in chain:

new forms of life developed; disappear; single-celled beings; make food from sunlight and sea water; attract millions of animals; need food; lobsters and deep-sea fish; make up colonies called plankton; make food for the larger creatures of the sea; plankton is numerous; eat the plants of the plankton and tiny animals living in it; eat each other; live on fish or animals; link in the endless chain of food.

9.4.5 Exercise 5

Summarize the information about the endless chain of food in plankton and speak on it You may develop a discussion on it.

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9.5 Coral-reefs

9.5.1 Exercise 1

Repeat the following words and expressions:

1)huge masses of skeletons;

2)to attach to rocks;

3)sea anemone;

4)something like feelers;

5)to live inside;

6)algae;

7)a few feet above deep sea waters;

8)a hidden volcano;

9)the Earth’s crust;

10)sunk island;

11)sandy beach;

12)to rear the young = to raise the young.

9.5.2 Exercise 2

Listen to the text “Coral reefs” and write down as much information as possible.

In the warm waters around the equator there are chains of small islands called reefs. They are white and narrow. These islands are not a part of the Earth’s crust.

They are made of huge masses of skeletons of tiny soft creatures. They are corals, known as coral reefs.

Charles Darwin was the first to write about them in his book “The Voyage of the Beagle”.

Corals live in warm seas. In great numbers they attach themselves to rocks and grow hard structures looking like trees. When corals die, the structures they have built remain, their skeletons forming into hard reef, white and pink or red in colour, often of a beautiful shape. Slowly a colourful rocky coral forest grow.

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