【易伯华出品】雅思阅读机经真题解析--The dugong: sea cow(海牛)

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The dugong: sea cow(海牛)

Dugongs are herbivorous mammals that spend their entire lives in the sea.

Their close relatives the manatees also venture into or live in fresh water.

Together dugongs and manatees make up the order Sirenia (海牛目口物) or sea cows,

so-named because dugongs and manatees are thought to have given rise to the myth

of the mermaids or sirens (女巫) of the sea.

AThe dugong, which is a large marine mammal which, together with the

manatees, looks rather like a cross between a rotund dolphin and a walrus. Its

body, flippers and fluke resemble those of a dolphin but it has no dorsal fin.

Its head looks somewhat like that of a walrus without the long tusks.

BDugongs, along with other Sirenians whose diet consists mainly of sea-grass;

and the distribution of dugongs very closely follows that of these marine

flowering plants. As seagrasses grow rooted in the sediment, they are limited by

the availability of light. Consequently they are found predominantly in shallow

coastal waters, and so too are dugongs. But, this is not the whole story.

Dugongs do not eat all species of seagrass, preferring seagrass of higher

nitrogen and lower fibre content.

CDue to their poor eyesight, dugongs often use smell to locate edible plants.

They also have a strong tactile sense, and feel their surroundings with their

long sensitive bristles. They will dig up an entire plant and then shake it to

remove the sand before eating it. They have been known to collect a pile of

plants in one area before eating them. The flexible and muscular upper lip is

used to dig out the plants. When eating they ingest the whole plant, including

the roots, although when this is impossible they will feed on just the leaves. A

wide variety of seagrass has been found in dugong stomach contents, and evidence

exists they will eat algae when seagrass is scarce. Although almost completely

herbivorous,they will occasionally eat invertebrates such as jellyfish, sea

squirts, and shellfish.

DA heavily grazed seagrass bed looks like a lawn mown by a drunk. Dugongs

graze apparently at random within a seagrass bed, their trails meandering in all

directions across the bottom. This is rather an inefficient means of removing

seagrass that results in numerous small tufts remaining. And this is where the

dugongs derive some advantage from their inefficiency. The species that recover

most quickly from this disturbance, spreading out vegetatively from the

remaining tufts, are those that dugongs like to cat. In addition, the new growth

found in these areas tends to be exactly what hungry dugongs like.

EDugongs are semi-nomadic, often travelling long distances in search of food,

but staying within a certain range their entire life. Large numbers often move

together from one area to another. It is thought that these movements are caused

by changes in seagrass availability. Their memory allows them to return to

specific points after long travels. Dugong movements mostly occur within a

localised area of seagrass beds, and animals in the same region show

individualistic patterns of movement.

FRecorded numbers of dugongs are generally believed to be lower than actual

numbers, due to a lack of accurate surveys. Despite this, the dugong population

is thought to be shrinking, with a worldwide decline of 20 per cent in the last

90 years. They have disappeared from the waters of Hong Kong, Mauritius, and

Taiwan, as well as parts of Cambodia, Japan, the Philippines and Vietnam.

Further disappearances are likely. (In the late 1960s, herds of up to 500

dugongs were observed off the coast of East Africa and nearby islands However,

current populations in this area are extremely small, numbering 50 and below,

and it is thought likely they will become extinct. The eastern side of the Red

Sea is the home of large populations numbering in the hundreds, and similar

populations are thought to exist on the western side. In the 1980s, it was

estimated there could be as many as 4,000 dugongs in the Red Sea. The Persian

Gulf has the second-largest dugong population in the world, inhabiting most of

the southern coast, and the current population is believed to be around 7,500.

Australia is home to the largest population, stretching from Shark Bay in

Western Australia to Moreton Bay in Queensland. The population of Shark Bay is

thought to be stable with over 10,000 dugongs.)

GExperience from various parts of northern Australia suggests that Extreme

weather such as cyclones and floods can destroy hundreds of square kilometres of

seagrass meadows, as well as washing dugongs ashore. The recovery of seagrass

meadows and the spread of seagrass into new areas, or areas where it has been

destroyed, can take over a decade. For example, about 900 km2 of seagrass was

lost in Hervey Bay in 1992, probably because of murky water from flooding of

local rivers, and run-off turbulence from a cyclone three weeks later. Such

events can cause extensive damage to seagrass communities through severe wave

action, shifting sand and reduction in saltiness and light levels. Prior to the

1992 floods, the extensive seagrasses in Hervey Bay supported an estimated 1750

dugongs. Eight months after the floods the affected area was estimated to

support only about 70 dugongs. Most animals presumably survived by moving to

neighbouring areas. However, many died attempting to move to greener pastures,

with emaciated carcasses washing up on beaches up to 900km away.

HIf dugongs do not get enough to eat they may calve later and produce fewer

young. Food shortages can be caused by many factors, such as a loss of habitat,

death and decline in quality of seagrass, and a disturbance of feeding caused by

human activity. Sewage, detergents, heavy metal, hypersaline water, herbicides,

and other waste products all negatively affect seagrass meadows. Human activity

such as mining, trawling, dredging, land-reclamation, and boat propeller

scarring also cause an increase in sedimentation which smothers seagrass and

prevents light from reaching it. This is the most significant negative factor

affecting seagrass. One of the dugong's preferred species of seagrass, Halophila

ovalis, declines rapidly due to lack of light, dying completely after 30

days.

IDespite being legally protected in many countries, the main causes of

population decline remain anthropogenic and include hunting,

habitat degradation, and fishing-related fatalities. Entanglement in fishing

nets has caused many deaths, although there are no precise statistics. Most

issues with industrial fishing occur in deeper waters where dugong populations

are low, with local fishing being the main risk in shallower waters.

Questions 1-4

Summary

Complete the following summary of the paragraphs of Reading Passage, using no

more than two words from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your answers

in boxes 1-4 on your answer sheet.

Dugongs are herbivorous mammals that spend their entire lives in the sea. Yet

Dugongs are picky on their feeding seagrass, and only chose seagrass with higher

1 and lower fibre. To compensate for their poor eyesight, they use their 2 to

feel their surroundings.

It is like Dugongs are "farming" seagrass. They often leave 3 randomly in all

directions across the sea bed. Dugongs prefer eating the newly grew seagrass

recovering from the tiny 4 left behind by the grazing dugongs.

Questions 5-9

Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading

Passage 1?

In boxes 5-9 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

5 The dugong will keep eating up the plant completely when they begin to

feed

6 It takes more than ten years for the re-growth of seagrass where it has

been only grazed by Dugongs.

7 Even in facing food shortages, the strong individuals will not compete with

weak small ones for food.

8 It is thought that the dugong rarely return to the old habitats when they

finished plant.

9 Coastal industrial fishing poses the greatest danger to dugongs which are

prone to be killed due to entanglement.

Questions 10-13

Answer the questions below.

Choose NO MORE THAN TWO WORDS AND/OR A

NUMBER from the passage for each answer.

10 What is Dugong in resemblance to yet as people can easily tell them apart

from the manatees by the fins in its back?

11 What is the major reason as Dugongs travelled long distances in herds from

one place to another?

12 What number, has estimated to be, of dugong' population before the 1 992

floods in Hervey Bay took place?

13 What is thought to be the lethal danger when dugongs were often trapped

in?

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