共用题干
第二篇
Night of the Living Ants
When an ant dies,other ants move the dead insect out of the nest.This behavior is interesting to scien-
tists,who wonder how ants know for sure一and so soon一that another ant is dead.
Dong-Hwan Choe,a scientist at the University of California,found that Argentine ants have a chemical
on the outside of their bodies that signals to other ants,"I'm dead一take me away."
But there's a twist to Choe's discovery. These ants behave a little bit like zombies(僵尸).Choe says
that the living ants一not just the dead ones一have this death chemicals. In other words,while an ant crawls
around,perhaps in a picnic or home,it's telling other ants that it's dead.
What keeps ants from hauling away the living dead? Choe found that Argentine ants have two additional
chemicals on their bodies,and these tell nearby ants something like,"Wait一I'm not dead yet."So Choe's
research turned up two sets of chemical signals in ants:one says,"I'm dead,"the other set says,"I'm not
dead yet."
Other scientists have tried to figure out how ants know when another ant is dead.If an ant is knocked
unconscious,other ants leave it alone until it wakes up.That means ants know that unmoving ants can still be
alive.
Choe suspects that when an Argentine ant dies,the chemical that says"Wait一I'm not dead yet"quickly
goes away. Once that chemical is gone,only the one that says"I'm dead"is left."It's because the dead ant
no longer smells like a living ant that it gets carried to the graveyard(墓地),not because its body releases
new,unique chemicals after death,"said Choe.When other ants detect the"dead"chemical without the"not
dead yet" chemical,they haul away the body. This was Choe's hypothesis(假设).
To test his hypothesis,Choe and his team put different chemicals on Argentine ant pupae(蛹).When
the scientists used the"I'm dead"chemical,other ants quickly hauled the treated pupae away.When the sci-
entists used the"Wait一I'm not dead yet"chemical,other ants left the treated pupae alone.Choe believes
this behavior shows that the" not dead yet" chemical overrides(优先于)the" dead" chemical when picked up
by adult ants.And that when an ant dies,the"not dead yet"chemical fades away.Other nearby ants then de-
tect the remaining"dead"chemical and remove the body from the nest.
Which of the following statements is NOT true of ants?
A:Ants know very soon that?another ant is dead.
B:When an ant is dead,others move its body out of the nest.
C:If an ant is unconscious,it is moved out of the nest.
D:Living ants have the"I'm dead"chemical on their bodies.