TPO 45

The reading passage and the listening section are both discussing whether bees existed 200 million years ago or not. The article suggests some reasonable arguments that bees did not exist at that time. However, the speaker delve into reasons and examples to refute this idea.

First of all, the article mentions that there have never found preserved fossils 200 million years ago. That is to say, the earliest bees is 100 years old. Nonetheless, the speaker disagrees with this statement. Bees are required a material produced by trees but trees are not come up before 200 million years ago. As a result, it is impossible to find the fossils before 200 million years ago. Moreover, the fossils are hard to preserved for such a long time.

Secondly, the article indicates that there are no flowering plants on Earth 125 million years ago. Therefore, bees cannot appear earlier than 125 million years ago. Nonetheless, the speaker disapproves of this idea. Bees may feed by non flowering plants before the flowering plants appear. Bees evolve slowly to become feeding on flowering plants.

Last but not least, the speakers refutes the idea that chambers were not made by bees. Recently, the researcher discovers the fossilized chambers have water-proof material. This material is same as the modern bees. Therefore, it can be infer that the fossilized chambers is made by the bees.