(IV)It is easy for us to tell ourfriends from our enemies. But can other animals do the same?Elephan

問題詳情

(IV)It is easy for us to tell ourfriends from our enemies. But can other animals do the same?Elephants can! They can use their sense of vision and smell to tellthe difference between people who pose a threat and those who do not. In Kenya, researchers found thatelephants react differently to clothing worn by men of the Maasai andKamba ethnic groups. Young Maasai men spear animals and thus pose athreat to elephants; Kamba men are mainly farmers and are not adanger to elephants. In an experiment conducted byanimal scientists, elephants were first presented with clean clothingor clothing that had been worn for five days by either a Maasai or aKamba man. When the elephants detected the smell of clothing worn bya Maasai man, they moved away from the smell faster and took longerto relax than when they detected the smells of either clothing wornby Kamba men or clothing that had not been worn at all.

Garment color also plays a role,though in a different way. In the same study, when the elephants sawred clothing not worn before, they reacted angrily, as red istypically worn by Maasai men. Rather than running away as they didwith the smell, the elephants acted aggressively toward the redclothing.

The researchers believe that theelephants’ emotional reactions are due to their differentinterpretations of the smells and the sights. Smelling a potentialdanger means that a threat is nearby and the best thing to do is runaway and hide. Seeing a potential threat without its smell means thatrisk is low. Therefore, instead of showing fear and running away, theelephants express their anger and become aggressive.

52. What is the main idea of this passage?
(A) The friendship between elephants and humans
(B) The history of Maasai and Kamba ethnic groups
(C) The emotional reactions of elephants for telling threats
(D) The different senses of vision and smell among animals

參考答案

答案：C
難度：簡單0.8
統計：A(0),B(1),C(4),D(0),E(0)

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