节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2012-11-20
难易度:Medium
关键字:imaginable, peril, tragic, extinction, wingspan
Hi, everybody.
Welcome to Studio Classroom Worldwide.
Thanks for joining us today.
My name is Steve.
This month's ANIMALS feature presents us with some of the most beautiful and
graceful winged creatures in the world.
We'll be talking about butterflies.
If you're like me, and you live in a big city, butterfly sightings are rare.
So when I do see one, I try to appreciate its fluttering flight and exotic
colors as much as I can,
especially now because some species are flying away, so to speak, never to
return.
So let's open our Studio Classroom magazines now to page 36 and learn about the
fragile life of Endangered Butterflies.
(Music).
Endangered Butterflies.
Some of these beautiful creatures are flying away, never to return.
All over the world, people admire the beauty and grace of butterflies.
Butterflies come in every color imaginable, and their wings display an
incredible variety of patterns.
The largest butterfly, Queen Alexandra's Birdwing, has a wingspan of up to 280
millimeters and lives in Papua New Guinea.
The smallest, the Western Pygmy Blue in the southern U.S., has a wingspan of
only 12 millimeters.
Sadly, some of these beautiful creatures are now in great peril.
Hello, friends. Thank you so much for joining us here in the studio.
My name is Kaylah.
My name is Ryan.
Friends, now we are talking about animals in our ANIMAL article.
Usually we talk about larger animals, wild animals, but today we are looking at
insects.
Now these are very teeny, tiny, little bitty animals.
Usually we can call them "bugs" as well.
Now we are looking at most likely the most beautiful insect.
And friends, what would you think that is?
Of course, it's the butterfly.
That's right.
But we're not talking about all butterflies today either, w'ere just looking at
endangered butterflies.
Friends, you might remember that if something is endangered, that means that
that type of animal might end up not being around anymore very soon.
That's right.
It means that they're dying very quickly.
They're dying more quickly than they can reproduce and have babies.
So if this happens, they will die away and we'll not have them anymore on Earth.
So we're talking about some of these beautiful creatures.
And we use this phrase: some of these beautiful creatures are flying away, never
to return.
Now that doesn't mean they fly and decide to go somewhere else.
It's a very polite and beautiful way of saying that they are dying.
Yeah. It's kind of poetic way.
They fly off and they won't return.
They won't come back because they might become extinct, which means they have
completely died off.
Now let's get started looking at some of these butterflies that are endangered.
Well, all over the world, people admire the beauty and grace of butterflies.
And I think this is very true.
Yeah. I mean, butterflies are very pretty, so people admire them.
If you admire something, that means you show great respect, and you would look
at it and you think it's very wonderful.
And the grace of a butterfly would mean their beautiful movement, how they move
through the air.
We not just... you know, they flutter, they get that very bouncy winged shape,
but they also look very beautiful as they're flying.
And I do think people look at them.
I think kind of a... a way of describing it without using words is people go:
Ooh... Oh.
Well, some people don't make those noises, but yes, butterflies are very
beautiful.
That's usually the first thing you think of when you think of a butterfly.
Oh, they're so beautiful.
They come in every color imaginable.
That's right. They do.
Actually, now that I think about it, very few animals come in this many colors.
Maybe uh... fish would be another one.
But really, they come in every color imaginable.
Now we know what our imagination is.
So what would something be that is imaginable?
Well, something that is "imaginable," that means it's possible to think of it.
So try, friends, and think of every color that you can.
You are now thinking of every color imaginable.
Hmm. Maybe... maybe my imagination is not very big because I'm having a hard
time,
because there are even more colors than I can think of right now that
butterflies get colored.
You know there're... there're all the colors of the rainbow, plus all the
different shades.
It's incredible.
They're very beautiful.
Yeah. And more than just colors, friends, and Kaylah, they have wings that
display an incredible variety of patterns.
That's very true.
We think of maybe fish being really colorful, like I said, but they are kind of
one color, or maybe two or three colors.
But if you look in your magazine, you can see pictures of butterflies who have
different patterns.
There are small little squares or circles or diamonds, all these different
colors.
They're very beautiful.
It's kind of like a quilt.
Exactly, yeah.
That's because a pattern is kind of the different shapes and lines on their
wings.
And if there's a variety, that means there's many, many, many different kinds.
Now there is... we're going to talk about the largest butterfly, and it's called
Queen Alexandra's Birdwing.
Now it has a wingspan of up to 280 millimeters and lives in Papua New Guinea.
OK. So 280 millimeters, that's actually pretty large for an insect.
And they have a large wingspan.
The word "wingspan" here is actually a combination of two different words.
That is the distance from the tip of one wing to the tip of another wing.
Now we would use this to describe anything with wings: birds, butterflies, other
insects, airplanes, all of them.
Anything that has wings, we can describe it as having a wingspan.
That's from tip to tip, not just one.
That's all the way across.
Yes, from one wing to the other.
So when this butterfly's wings are open, it has a wingspan of 280 millimeters.
OK. So this one lives in Papua New Guinea.
And the smallest one is the Western Pygmy Blue.
And this is in the southern U.S., and has a wingspan of only 12 millimeters.
So they come in a big variety of sizes.
And we... it says... we called it here, we had a... a special name for it - a
Pygmy.
Ryan, can you remind us what "pygmy" was?
Yes. A pygmy is a type of animal or even people that are much smaller than
normal.
So if this is a "pygmy" butterfly, that means it's much smaller than most
butterflies and is, in fact, the smallest in the world.
That's right.
In fact, friends, you might member "pygmy" from pygmy marmosets.
We talked about little finger monkeys.
So these are pygmy butterflies.
They are the smallest.
But sadly, some of these beautiful creatures are now in great peril.
Yes. They're in "peril." That word means danger, danger usually of being killed.
Hmm, that's right.
Peril means your life is being threatened.
And we can say you are in great peril.
So peril is not something you want to be in.
That's right, friends.
This is really bad for these butterflies.
They are in danger of dying off.
OK. Ryan, you described to us what peril is, but we have this word "great" in
front of it.
"Great" usually means something awesome and good.
"Peril" is not good.
Right. That's because "great" can also mean very immense, very large.
And so... these butterflies are in very great, very big danger of being killed
off.
Oh, no!
Well, why?
Well, Kaylah, we'll get a chance to find that out after we take a break.
And we'll see exactly just how dangerous the situation is for these butterflies
and a little bit of what we can do to help.
My name's Hannah Anderson.
And now we are here at... in the South Puget Sound on a protected prairie site.
We are here for a release of Taylor's Checkerspot Butterfly, which is a state
endangered species and a federal candidate for listing.
And it's part of a regional recovery effort, so we have been... we are now
partners, Nature Conservancy and WDFW, WDNR,
and funded by the Department of Defense, are um, rearing butterflies in
captivity and then bringing them out to this release site to... reintroduce them
into the wild.
So this is about our... hmm, fourth year of introduction at the site, and the
first year that we have released adult animals.
So this is a really fragmented and rare system.
We think that we've lost almost 97 percent, perhaps, of the native prairie that
used to occur.
In this area there were 150,000 acres, and now we're just down to a handful of
protected sites as well as the large expanse that occurs on Fort Lewis.
And so we are now partners and are working very hard to... keep back the
invasives and to bring back the native vegetation and then reintroduce the
animalsthat once occured...