LESSON 53
1
sub
A
Submarine
submerge
B
subtract
submit
substitute
sublet
2
required interest insurance
experienced accurately
3
1. stampeding
2. offspring
3. urge
4. concealed
5. scent
4
focus ancient occurred veered
occasion gallop sprinted tumbled
secluded mated strongest sixteenth
groves electric straight ginkgo buffalo
scrambled skeleton fought instinctive
5
The Battle to Survive
When Tekla was five, she mated with a large male triceratops. Three males had fought
over her. Their instinctive fighting to see who would mate was insurance that only
the strongest would produce offspring, and those offspring would inherit their
parents' strength.1
In the spring, Tekla experienced some new instincts. She had a strong urge to be alone.
If another triceratops drew near her, she would lower her head and move her horns
from side to side, a sign that she was ready to attack. The other triceratops kept
their distance. A few days after Tekla had experienced the urge * to be alone, the
urge took on a new focus. Instinct told her, "Go to the cliffs. Go to the cliffs." And
so, late one afternoon she left the herd and walked to the ancient beach near the
cliffs. Her instincts told her to find a secluded spot and dig a deep hole. She dug the
hole with her front feet. Then she walked around the hole three or four times,
making sure that she was safe. "Hurry," her instincts told her. It was time to lay
eggs.2
She laid seven large eggs, then covered the hole and returned to * the herd. She had
done everything that was required of a mother triceratops. She would never know
her babies. She would have no interest in them. They were on their own, just as
Tekla had been from the day she was born.
Every year for the next twelve years, Tekla returned to the sand beach to lay eggs.
Every year after laying the eggs, she returned to the herd.3 During those twelve
years, she had one more fight with a tyrannosaur. She and five other triceratops
killed a large female. Tekla left the battle with the tip of her left * horn broken off.
Tekla's last fight occurred shortly after her sixteenth birthday. She was grazing on the
edge of the herd. The herd made a practice of grazing in the open, far from the
groves of trees which could hide the predators. On this occasion, however, the herd
had moved close to a grove of ginkgo trees. There was almost no breeze, so Tekla
couldn't smell the danger that the grove concealed.4
Suddenly, the herd stopped grazing; it was as if an electric shock had been sent through
the herd. Then the triceratops began to run. Tekla hadn't caught the * scent of the
predator, but she caught the panic of the herd. Like stampeding cattle, they began to
gallop from the grove of trees. Almost as quickly as they began to stampede, one
large tyrannosaur, and then another, sped from the grove. Part of the triceratops
herd split, moving off to the right. The rest kept running straight ahead. Tekla also
ran straight ahead, but she was far behind the other triceratops. Behind her was one
large tyrannosaur that could easily outrun a triceratops.
And it did. As the other tyrannosaur ran after the triceratops that veered to the right, *
this tyrannosaur sprinted after Tekla, overtaking her about three hundred meters
from the grove of ginkgo trees. It tried to break her back with its powerful jaws, but
the two animals were moving too fast for the tyrannosaur to direct its jaws
accurately. It caught some of Tekla's flesh in its jaws as it fell on her back. Both
animals tumbled to the ground with a terrible crash. Tekla scrambled to her feet,
began to run away, and then suddenly stopped to face the predator.
Nobody is sure why grazing animals sometimes run from predators and at other times
fight. * Sometimes water buffalo will run from lions, even though a water buffalo
can easily kill a lion. The triceratops herd ran from two tyrannosaurs, although they
could easily have killed both of them if they had stood their ground. Tekla had run
because the other triceratops had run. Now, however, her instincts told her that she
must fight.5