2019年10月26日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Copy your neighbor

2019年10月26日雅思阅读真题+题目+答案：Copy your neighbor

A

THERE’S no animal that symbolises rainforest diversity quite as spectacularly as the tropical butterfly. Anyone lucky enough to see these creatures flitting between patches of sunlight cannot fail to be impressed by the variety of their patterns. But why do they display such colourful exuberance? Until recently, this was almost as pertinent a question as it had been when the 19th-century naturalists, armed only with butterfly nets and insatiable curiosity, battle through the rainforests. These early explorers soon realised that although some of the butterflies’ bright colours are there to attract a mate, others are warning signals. They send out a message to any predators: “Keep off, we’re poisonous.” And because wearing certain patterns affords protection, other species copy them. Biologists use the term “mimicry rings” for these clusters of impostors and their evolutionary idol.

B

But here’s the conundrum. “Classical mimicry theory says that only a single ring should be found in any one area,” explains George Beccaloni of the Natural History Museum, London. The idea is that in each locality there should be just the one pattern that best protects its wearers. Predators would quickly learn to avoid it and eventually, all mimetic species in a region should converge upon it. “The fact that this is patently not the case has been one of the major problems in mimicry research,” says Beccaloni. In pursuit of a solution to the mystery of mimetic exuberance, Beccaloni set off for one of the mega centres for butterfly diversity, the point where the western edge of the Amazon basin meets the foothills of the Andes in Ecuador. “It’s exceptionally rich, but comparatively well collected, so I pretty much knew what was there, says Beccaloni.” The trick was to work out how all the butterflies were organised and how this related to mimicry.

C

Working at the Jatun Sach Biological Research Station on the banks of the Rio Napo, Beccaloni focused his attention on a group of butterflies called ithomiines. These distant relatives of Britain’s Camberwell Beauty are abundant throughout Central and South America and the Caribbean. They are famous for their bright colours, toxic bodies and complex mimetic relationships. “They can comprise up to 85 per cent of the individuals in a mimicry ring and their patterns are mimicked not just by butterflies, but by other insects as diverse as damselflies and true bugs,” says Philip DeVries of the Milwaukee Public Museum’s Center for Biodiversity Studies.

D

Even though all ithomiines are poisonous, it is in their interests to evolve to look like one another because predators that learn to avoid one species will also avoid others that resemble it. This is known as Müllerian mimicry. Mimicry rings may also contain insects that are not toxic but gain protection by looking likes a model species that is: an adaptation called Batesian mimicry. So strong is an experienced predator’s avoidance response that even quite inept resemblance gives some protection. “Often there will be a whole series of species that mimic, with varying degrees of verisimilitude, a focal or model species,” says John Turner from the University of Leeds. “The results of these deceptions are some of the most exquisite examples of evolution known to science.” In addition to colour, many mimics copy behaviours and even the flight pattern of their model species.

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Questions 1-5

The reading Passage has seven paragraphs A-I

Which paragraph contains the following information?

Write the correct letter A-I, in boxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.

NB You may use any letter more than once.

1 Criticism against flight height theory of butterfly

2 Explained why Beccaloni carried out research in Ecuador.

3 Different mimicry ring flies at different height

4 The method of catching butterfly by Beccaloni

5 Not all Mimicry patterns are toxic information sent out from insects.

Questions 6-11

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?

In boxes 6-11 on your answer sheet, write

TRUE if the statement is true

FALSE if the statement is false

NOT GIVEN if the information is not given in the passage

6 All butterflies’ colours of wings reflect the sense of warning to other predators.

7 Insects may imitate butterflies’ wing pattern as well.

8 Flying Altitude of the butterfly is determined by their food.

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