Relict Behavior
In general, animals act in ways that help them to survive within their specific habitats. However, sometimes an animal species may display a behavior that no longer serves a clear purpose. The original purpose for the behavior may have disappeared long ago, even thousands of years before. These behaviors, known as relict behaviors, were useful to the animal when the species' habitat was different: but now, because of changed conditions, the behavior no longer serves its original purpose. Left over from an earlier time, the behavior remains as a relict, or remnant, long after the environmental circumstance that influenced its evolution has vanished.
1. Ok, so a good example of this, found right here in North America, is something an animal called the American pronghorn does.
2. Pronghorns, as you may know, are a king of deer-like animal.
3. They live out on the open grassy plains, somewhat in the middle of North America.
4. And they are super-fast.
5. Pronghorns are in face noted for being the fastest animal in the western hemisphere.
6. Once a pronghorn starts running, zoon, none of its present-day predator, like the bobcat or coyote, can even hope to catch up with it.
7. It's off in a flash.
8. Ok, so why then do pronghorns run so fast?
9. That's the question.
10. Well, it turns out that quite a long time ag0- I am talking tens of thousands of years-things on the grassy plains used to be very different for the pronghorns, because back then, lions used to live on the plains, chasing and preying upon the pronghorns.
11. And lions, of course, are a very swift-moving mammal, much faster than the bobcat or coyote or other predators that you find on the plains today.
12. But now, however, lions are all extinct in North America.
13. They are no longer a predator of the pronghorn.
14. Tens of thousands of years ago, though, the lions were there, chasing the pronghorns, so back then, the pronghorn's speed was critical to its survival.
| Post dates | Users | rates | Contents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-08-19 | mike818 | 50.00 | Check this speaking |
| 2017-07-18 | ying.ma | 74.33 | Check this speaking |
| 2019-12-25 | bishoy | 80.00 | Check this speaking |
| 2017-01-01 | mgrajapt | Check this speaking | |
| 2018-04-17 | micro0o0 | 83.00 | Check this speaking |
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Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 626.0 592.248995984 106% => OK
No of words: 161.0 155.574297189 103% => OK
Chars per words: 3.88819875776 3.80514564318 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 3.56210296601 3.525876923 101% => OK
Word Length SD: 1.77278875937 1.79077849142 99% => OK
Unique words: 105.0 93.7148594378 112% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.652173913043 0.604071249207 108% => OK
Syllable count: 189.9 185.844578313 102% => OK
Avg_syllables_per_word: 1.2 1.19417670683 100% => OK
Performance on coherence:
Topic speech coherence ratio: 0.0437812878724 0.0650381309087 67% => OK
Acoustic performance on paragraphs:
How many acoustic paragraphs: 1.0 4.35341365462 23% => Need more acoustic paragraphs.
Average paragraph length: 161.0 68.503853103 235% => The average paragraph length is high.
STD paragraph length: 0.0 21.3332995233 0% => OK
Average paragraph duration: 59.28 25.9943957902 228% => Need to control the rhythm of the speech
STD paragraph duration: 0.0 7.84667146824 0% => The duration of acoustic paragraphs keeps same.
Acoustic performance on sentences:
How many acoustic sentences: 39.0 42.0642570281 93% => OK
Average acoustic sentence length: 4.12820512821 4.02192344571 103% => OK
STD acoustic sentence length: 3.22791897064 3.1217529195 103% => OK
Average acoustic sentences duration: 1.47923076923 1.45093177766 102% => OK
STD acoustic sentences duration: 0.976357397298 0.99851816184 98% => OK
Acoustic performance on acoustic silence:(An acoustic silence means a little pause between two or more words)
How many acoustic silence: 40.0 39.0421686747 102% => OK
Total acoustic silence duration: 11.19 7.12997991968 157% => It may have a lot of silences or every silence is too long.
Average acoustic silence duration: 0.27975 0.185688545393 151% => Maybe the pauses are too long.
STD acoustic silence duration: 0.212972856252 0.155154303396 137% => OK
Acoustic performance on acoustic words:
Total word duration: 44.73 47.1480722892 95% => OK
Average word duration: 0.277826086957 0.305395592593 91% => OK
STD word duration: 0.14475378819 0.189427763521 76% => OK
Disfluencies: like hesitations, or 'ehn' or taking a long time to pronounce a word:
How many disfluencies: 5.0 7.94979919679 63% => OK
Total_disfluencies_duration: 3.36 6.2937751004 53% => OK
Total acoustic noise duration: 1.3 3.39508032129 38% => OK
Acoustic rates:
Total speech duration: 59.28 59.7592369478 99% => OK
Compare to expected duration: 0.988 0.995987282463 99% => OK
Rate of silence: 0.674763832659 0.656000678711 103% => OK
Rate of speech: 2.71592442645 2.60215298798 104% => OK
Rate of speech by unique words: 1.77125506073 1.56821927147 113% => OK
Rate of word duration by unique words: 2.34741784038 1.99336655568 118% => OK
Average articulation rates: 0.238147099379 0.317803793328 75% => OK
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Rates: 85.0 out of 100
Scores by speech e-grader: 25.5 Out of 30
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Note: the speech e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas.