托福口语 Task 4

Today we're going to talk about a fascinating behavior in the animal kingdom: cooperative hunting. Now, cooperative hunting occurs when animals work together to catch prey, and this strategy often provides benefits that solitary hunting cannot. However, the key point I want to emphasize is that cooperative hunting is not just about group effort—it's about role specialization, where different individuals perform different tasks to increase the group's overall success. Let me give you two examples to illustrate this. First, consider lions. In a pride, female lions work together, but they don't all do the same thing. Some lions act as 'drivers,' they circle around and chase the prey toward the center. Meanwhile, other lions are 'ambushers,' they hide in the grass and wait to attack when the prey comes close. This division of labor makes the hunt much more efficient than if all lions just chased the prey. Second, think about dolphins. When dolphins hunt fish, they use a technique called 'herding.' Some dolphins create a ring of mud to trap the fish, while others take turns swimming through the trapped fish to eat. Again, different dolphins have different roles—some are 'herders' and others are 'feeders.' So, in both cases, the success of the hunt relies on each individual performing a specific role, not just on the number of animals involved.