Blue whales may be the largest microplastic?piece eaters藍鯨或是微塑料的最大進食者

谷戰峰

主題語境：海洋生態 篇幅：317詞 建議用時：7分鐘

Researchers have estimated that blue whales takein about 10 million pieces of microplastics each day.

Microplastics are particles of plastic debris（碎片）that are less than 5 millimeters long. They comefrom the breakdown of many kinds of plastic productsand industrial waste. Particle levels have been build?ing up in the worlds oceans for many years. The possible health effects on whales from eat?ing microplastics are still not well understood.

Scientists studied three species of baleen whales（須鯨）—blue， fin and humpback.Baleen whales are born without teeth. But they have special plates in their mouths that fil?ter food. They feed on very small animals， mainly the shrimp?like creatures called krill（磷蝦）.

A study by the researchers says the estimated 10 million pieces of microplastics thatblue whales eat daily weigh about 44 kilograms. The study found that fin whales may takein up to 6 million microplastic pieces a day. Humpbacks that mostly feed on krill likely eatabout 4 million microplastic pieces daily. Humpbacks that favor fish may take in a muchsmaller amount with about 200，000 pieces a day. About 99 percent of the plastic materialcame from other animals that the whales eat， not from the water they filter.

Blue whales can grow up to 30 meters long. Fin whales can reach 24 meters， whilehumpbacks are generally about 15 meters. The researchers estimated the daily microplasticintake by examining the food search behavior of 126 blue whales， 65 humpbacks and 29fins. They used measurements from electronic tag devices that they attached to the animalsbacks. The device was equipped with a camera， a microphone and a GPS tracker. Theythen considered levels of microplastics that exist in the travel path of the whales.

The new study found that the whales mainly feed at ocean depths of 50 to 250 meters.This is within the area with the highest measured microplastic levels in the open?oceanenvironment.

Reading

Check

1. Scientists studied baleen whales in order to find out .

A. what made up of their diet

B. how plastics affect their health

C. how their eating habits have changed

D. how much food they eat on a daily basis

2. Which species take in the smallest amount of plastics？

A. Baleen whales.

B. Blue whales.

C. Fin whales.

D. Humpbacks.

3. What can we learn from paragraph 4？

A. Humpbacks have plentiful food sources.

B. Fish are the main food source of humpbacks.

C. Blue whales are at the top of the food chain in the sea.

D. Most of plastics enter whales bodies through the food chain.

4. Whats the main function of the tag devices on the whales backs？

A. Taking pictures.

B. Giving directions.

C. Taking measurements.

D. Recording sounds.

Language

Study

Ⅰ. Difficult sentence in the text

They used measurements from electronic tag devices that they attached to the animals'backs. 他們使用的測量結果來源于附著在這些鯨魚背部的電子標簽設備。

【點石成金】本句是一個主從復合句。that 引導一個定語從句，在從句中作及物動詞attached的賓語。

Ⅱ. Text?centered chunks

take in 攝入；吸收

build up 逐漸積聚；集結

feed on 以……為主食

attach sth to 把某物附著在……上面

be equipped with 配備有……；裝備著……