高二英语2015年三月份试卷详解.ppt

* A There are many giants under the sea, animals bigger than many people can imagine. But what do we really know about these enormous creatures?A team of scientists has looked at the body sizes of 25 sea creatures including whales, squids (乌贼), and other ocean giants for a project. Craig McClain, the assistant director of the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center in North Carolina, US, said that many people have “quite unrealistic” ideas of the sizes of these creatures. “Several years ago I noticed that people kept saying that giant squids reached 60 feet (18 meters) in length, which is amazingly long.” In fact, they are closer to 12 meters long.What is true, however, is that giant squids have the largest eyes of any animal. They see the world with eyes the size of soccer balls, measuring a huge 27 centimeters in diameter, according to the report “A unique advantage for giant eyes in giant squid” in the Current Biology journal. The largest fish eye is the 9-centimeter eye of the swordfish – it would fit in the giant squid’s pupil (瞳孔)!Large eyes are much better at seeing other large objects that give off their own light in water deeper than 500 meters. This is important for the giant squid, as it means that they can spot sperm whales (抹香鲸), who eat them, from a safe distance.Another famous ocean giant is the blue whale, the largest mammal to have ever lived on Earth. According to National Geographic, their tongues alone can weigh as much as an elephant. Even a baby blue whale (calf) weighs up to 2,700 kg and is up to 8 meters long. However, blue whales are also very fast for their size. They can travel at over 8 km/h, and can reach speeds of over 30 km/h.You might think that blue whales eat large animals like giant squids, but in fact they almost entirely eat a small creature called krill (磷虾). Their larger size can also protect them against being starved, as they can move from an area with no food to another area rich in food without eating, accor