The Sleepy Lizard IELTS Listening Answers With

Audio, Transcript, And Explanation

DOL IELTS Đình Lực 02/10 /2024

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Question 1 - 10
Complete the notes below.

Write ONE WORD ONLY for each answer.

The sleepy lizard (tiliqua rugose)

Description

• They are common in western and south Australia

• They are brown but recognisable by their blue 1

• They are relatively large

• Their diet consists mainly of 2

• Their main predators are large birds and 3

Navigation study

• One study found that lizards can use the 4 to help them navigate

Observations in the wild

• Observations show that these lizards keep the same 5 for several years

What people want

• Possible reasons:
◦ To improve the survival of their young (but little 6 has been noted between
parents and children)

◦ To provide 7 for female lizards

Tracking study
• A study was carried out using GPS systems attached to the 8 of the lizards

• This provided information on the lizards’ location and even the number of 9 taken

• It appeared that the lizards were trying to avoid one another

• This may be in order to reduce chances of 10

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Last week, we started looking at reptiles, including crocodiles and snakes. Today, I’d like us to have a look
at another reptile – the lizard – and in particular, at some studies that have been done on a particular type
of lizard whose Latin name is tiliqua rugosa. This is commonly known as the sleepy lizard, because it’s
quite slow in its movements and spends quite a lot of its time dozing under rocks or lying in the sun.

I’ll start with a general description. Sleepy lizards live in Western and South Australia, where they’re quite
common. Unlike European lizards, which are mostly small, green and fast-moving, sleepy lizards are
brown, but what’s particularly distinctive about them is the colour of their tongue, which is dark blue, in
contrast with the lining of their mouth which is bright pink.

And they’re much bigger than most European lizards. They have quite a varied diet, including insects and
even small animals, but they mostly eat plants of varying kinds.

Even though they’re quite large and powerful, with strong jaws that can crush beetles and snail shells,
they still have quite a few predators. Large birds like cassowaries were one of the main ones in the past,
but nowadays they’re more likely to be caught and killed by snakes

Actually, another threat to their survival isn’t a predator at all, but is man-made – quite a large number of
sleepy lizards are killed by cars when they’re trying to cross highways.

One study carried out by Michael Freake at Flinders University investigated the methods of navigation of
these lizards. Though they move slowly, they can travel quite long distances. And he found that even if
they were taken some distance away from their home territory, they could usually find their way back
home as long as they could see the sky – they didn’t need any other landmarks on the ground.

Observations of these lizards in the wild have also revealed that their mating habits are quite unusual.
Unlike most animals, it seems that they’re relatively monogamous, returning to the same partner year after
year

And the male and female also stay together for a long time, both before and after the birth of their young.
It’s quite interesting to think about the possible reasons for this. It could be that it’s to do with protecting
their young – you’d expect them to have a much better chance of survival if they have both parents
around.

But in fact observers have noted that once the babies have hatched out of their eggs, they have hardly
any contact with their parents. So, there’s not really any evidence to support that idea.

Another suggestion’s based on the observation that male lizards in monogamous relationships tend to be
bigger and stronger than other males. So maybe the male lizards stay around so they can give the female
lizards protection from other males. But again, we’re not really sure.

Finally, I’d like to mention another study that involved collecting data by tracking the lizards. I was actually
involved in this myself. So we caught some lizards in the wild and we developed a tiny GPS system that
would allow us to track them, and we fixed this onto their tails.

Then we set the lizards free again, and we were able to track them for twelve days and gather data, not
just about their location, but even about how many steps they took during this period.

One surprising thing we discovered from this is that there were far fewer meetings between lizards than
we expected – it seems that they were actually trying to avoid one another.

So why would that be? Well, again we have no clear evidence, but one hypothesis is that male lizards can
cause quite serious injuries to one another, so maybe this avoidance is a way of preventing this – of self-
preservation, if you like. But we need to collect a lot more data before we can be sure of any of this.
Answer key (đáp án và giải thích )

1 tongue/tongues Xem full giải thích

2 plants Xem full giải thích

3 snakes Xem full giải thích

4 sky Xem full giải thích

5 partners /partner Xem full giải thích

6 contact Xem full giải thích

7 protection Xem full giải thích

8 tail/tails Xem full giải thích

9 steps Xem full giải thích

10 injury/injuries Xem full giải thích

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