IELTS 聽力題型：全部 6 種題型，附範例題目與解答

Audio script

(Section 4: You will hear a talk on the topic of red squirrel conservation. First, you will have some time to look at questions 31 to 40 [20 seconds]. Listen carefully and answer questions 31 to 40.)

L=Lecturer

Good afternoon and welcome to today's lecture on red squirrel conservation in the UK.

The red squirrel is the UK's only native squirrel species, and was once a common sight across the UK. But for decades they've been in decline. Today, red squirrels are sadly absent from most of the UK, affected by the spread of the introduced non-native grey squirrel.

Red squirrels live in coniferous forests and deciduous woods in Europe and northern Asia. Their range extends from the UK, Ireland and Western Europe to Russia, Mongolia, and northwest China. Numbers in the UK have fallen dramatically since grey squirrels were introduced as an ornamental species in the 1870s.

Since then, the UK population of reds has dropped from around 3.5 million to between 120,000 to 160,000 individuals, according to different estimates. The population in England is thought to be as low as 15,000. Population strongholds are Scotland, Northumberland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and the Lake District as well as on islands such as Brownsea. By the way, if you want to see them in the wild, prime spotting times are morning and late afternoon because that's when they're most active.

The red squirrel is officially classed as 'near threatened' in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but is locally common in Scotland. The main cause behind their decline, as I mentioned previously, is the introduction of grey squirrels from America. There are three main reasons why greys are a threat. Firstly, grey squirrels carry a disease, squirrel parapox virus, which does not appear to affect their health but often kills red squirrels. Also, grey squirrels are more likely to eat green acorns, so will decimate the food sources before reds get to them. Reds can't digest mature acorns, so can only eat green acorns. And, when red squirrels are put under pressure they will not breed as often. Another huge factor in their decline is the loss of woodland over the last century, but road traffic and predators are also threats, too.

Red squirrels are recognisable by their red to russet fur, ear tufts and long, fluffy tails. But the colour of their coats can vary with some reds appearing very grey (and some grey squirrels can have red fur down their backs and on their feet). Reds have small ear tufts that can develop into large tufts in the winter.

Red squirrels are very elusive and spend much of their time in the tree canopy. Ways to spot them include looking out for large dreys in trees, scratch marks on bark, and chewed pine cones that look like chewed apple cores. It is also helpful to listen for their 'chuk chuk' noise, which is a vocalisation they often use.

Red squirrels have a mainly vegetarian diet that includes seeds, hazelnuts and green acorns, fungus, bark, and sapwood. They also occasionally take animal prey such as young birds and eggs. They especially favour pine seeds, but also eat larch and spruce seeds. Because they disperse seeds, they play a vital role in the reforestation process.

Reds do not hibernate and store fungi in trees to eat over the winter months. When food is plentiful, they put on weight in the autumn to help them through the winter. This is important for breeding females, so that they are in good condition for producing young in the spring.

Red squirrels usually produce 2-3 young, called kittens, in February to April and they often produce a second litter from May to June. Outside of the mating season, red squirrels tend to live alone, but in early spring, watch out for their courtship displays in the trees. Babies are born 45-48 days after mating, and are looked after by their mothers. Kittens are weaned around 10 weeks when they develop a complete set of teeth. Some stay with their mothers over winter. Between 20 and 50 percent of red squirrel kittens survive to adulthood.

There are projects across Britain to develop long-term conservation strategies that deter greys and encourage reds. They include…

Audio Script

Lucas: Hannah, before we build the slides, we need one clear reason why this comet still matters.

Hannah: I would avoid saying it is simply the brightest comet people have seen. Some others were more spectacular, and some stayed visible for longer. And predictability alone is not enough either.

Lucas: Why does it still matter?

Hannah: Exactly. Few astronomical objects can be followed through observations made over more than two thousand years. That lets us compare very different observing traditions over an unusually long period.

Lucas: That gives us a solid way into the topic.

Lucas: I also had not expected much from the medieval European material. I thought it would be vague, but some of the drawings are surprisingly careful.

Hannah: More than the number of places where it was recorded?

Lucas: Yes. The spread of records is useful, but the drawings themselves are what caught my attention. Some show the tail shape, the brightness and even where the comet sat in relation to familiar stars.

Hannah: And they did not usually mistake it for an ordinary star or planet, so that is not the issue.

Lucas: Now, Edmond Halley. What exactly was significant about his 1705 calculation?

Hannah: We should be careful. Newton had already provided the mathematics for elliptical orbits, so Halley was not inventing that. And reducing it to a lucky date prediction makes it sound too small.

Lucas: Then what should we say?

Hannah: He made a claim that people in the future could check for themselves. If the comet came back near the calculated time, the calculation would stand or fall in public, as it were.

Lucas: We should include that.

Lucas: What about 1986? I want to call it a scientific success because spacecraft sent back close up data.

Hannah: Scientifically, yes, there was a lot to celebrate. But ordinary observers had a rather flat experience because the comet was badly placed in the sky. So if we are judging the visit as a whole, I would not make it sound like a triumph for everyone.

Lucas: So we differ on how positive the overall judgement should be.

Hannah: Exactly. We both value the spacecraft data; we just weigh the public experience differently. Now, for the 1066 apparition, which two claims can we support properly?

Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 25 to 30. [20 seconds] Now listen and answer questions 25 to 30.

Lucas: The Bayeux Tapestry is tempting, but stitched figures pointing upward do not prove what people felt. It shows the comet was noticed, not that we can measure fear from it.

Hannah: Agreed. The written sources are stronger on duration; several chronicles describe it remaining visible over a period of weeks.

Lucas: Yes, that appears in several European accounts.

Hannah: I would not say the comet caused the Norman victory. That is an interpretation people made around the event, not evidence about the apparition itself.

Lucas: The other useful point is that East Asian records line up with the European dates. Chinese and Japanese astronomers were observing independently, which makes the identification much more secure.

Hannah: Right. But saying it was first seen in the Mediterranean is more precise than the evidence allows.

Lucas: That should give us enough reliable evidence for that part.

Hannah: Now for the matching. The earliest entry, 240 BC, comes from Chinese court records.

Lucas: That gives us a good starting point for the long record.

Hannah: In 1066, people read the comet through the politics of the time. It was treated as a warning sign, especially because it appeared during a period of uncertainty.

Lucas: For 1758, the key thing is that the return matched Halley's calculation closely enough to confirm the orbital work.

Hannah: And in 1986 we get direct spacecraft encounters, with Giotto and the Vega probes sending back data.

Lucas: Good. Now the sequence is much clearer.

Audio script

We'll be pulling up at Westmoor Castle in just under five minutes, but before we get there, let me give you a little background and explain what your visit will cover. The site itself has had some kind of fortified building on it for more than 1,100 years. The very first structure here was a small fort put up in 914 AD as a defence against Danish raiders. It was actually commissioned by King Alfred the Great's daughter, who was more or less ruling parts of England at that time. Roughly a hundred years later, after the Norman Conquest, the surrounding land was handed to a nobleman called Richard Davenport, and the castle he had built then stayed in the Davenport family for more than four centuries.

Things changed when Queen Elizabeth I announced, in 1576, that she planned to drop in on her way back from a royal progress. By that point the castle was looking distinctly tired, and rather than rebuild the existing guest rooms, the family decided to put up a brand new wooden lodging for her, attached to the side of the great hall. Her Majesty stayed there for four nights, and accounts from the time say it was extremely luxurious, but, sadly, the building was completely destroyed in a fire only a few years afterwards.

In the seventeenth century, the property changed hands again and was bought by the very wealthy Farnsworth family, who carried out major works to enlarge it and make it much more comfortable. The Farnsworths held on until 1982. By then, even with the modest grants the government was offering them for upkeep, the family simply couldn't cope with the running costs any longer, so the castle was put on the open market. It was eventually purchased by a national company that runs a chain of theme parks, and although that may sound off putting, you'll see when we arrive that they've been very careful to preserve the castle's original character.

Inside the building, the staterooms are now occupied by life sized wax figures dressed in costumes from various points in the castle's history. Some of them are even animatronic, they move and appear to chat to one another, which can be rather startling at first. Alongside the wax figures, in every single room you'll also find a printed booklet that explains what the room was once used for and tells you the history of the furniture and other objects on display.

The grounds are surprisingly large. In the past sheep were grazed here; in the nineteenth century the Farnsworths even kept their own small private zoo, which housed everything from rabbits to, at one point, a young elephant. Those former zoo buildings still stand and are now used as galleries for travelling exhibitions of paintings and sculpture, so do try to look in. The park also contains some magnificent old trees, although the very oldest ones, which were thought to be roughly 800 years old, were sadly brought down in the storms of 1987.

You're free to wander around independently until 4.30, and at that point we'll all meet again at the foot of the great staircase. From there, I'll take you through to the long gallery where we have a beautiful set of photographs showing the family who lived in the castle a hundred years ago, taking afternoon tea in a glass conservatory. We'll then walk you through to the very same conservatory, where afternoon tea will be served to you.

Before you hear the rest of the talk, you have some time to look at questions 16 to 20. [20 seconds] Now listen and answer questions 16 to 20.

Right, if you can take a quick look at the plan I've handed out, you'll see that Westmoor Castle has four towers connected by a high curtain wall, with the river curling around two sides of the site. Use the main entrance as your starting point, and what you'll notice nearest the river is the Great Hall, inside the main tower, that's the largest of the four, which was made much bigger and redesigned during the eighteenth century.

From the main entrance, if you go straight up the path until you reach the Southgate, the steps up onto the walls are right there, just inside the grounds. That's where the wall walk begins for anyone who would like a good overall view of the castle. Please don't carry on as far as the Northgate, there's no way up onto the walls from that side.

Back near the entrance, take the left hand path closest to it and keep going past the bridge; the archery display, where experienced archers show off their skill with the bow and arrow, is straight ahead at the very end of that path. If you prefer animals, head again from the main entrance towards the Southgate, but turn off to the right just before you reach the gate instead of going through it. The hunting birds display is on your right, just past the tower you come to there.

Over on the far side of the castle from the main entrance, beyond the bridge, you'll find the open air stage where the traditional dancing starts at three o'clock; it's about a ten minute walk from where we'll be. The gift shop is also tucked into one of the towers, but the entrance is on the outside, so from the entrance area you follow that same left hand path and then take the right hand turn that leads around to the tower doorway.

Right, we're just pulling up now.

Audio script

Excuse me.

Yes?

I wonder if you could spare a few minutes to do a survey on transport.

It won't take long.

No, that's fine.

Lovely. The survey is on behalf of the local council. They'd like to know about what transport you use and any suggestions for improvement.

Can I start by asking you how you travelled to town today?

Sure. I came on the bus.

Great. Now can I get a few details about yourself?

OK.

What's your name?

It's Luisa ....

Yes.

Hardie.

Can you spell that, please?

Yes, it's H-A-R-D-l-E.

Great. Thanks. And can I have your address?

It's 19, White Stone Road.

Oh, right'. I know that area. It's Bradfield, isn't it?

That's right.

Is the postcode GT7?

It's actually G-T-8. 2-L-C.

Great. And could I ask what your job is? Are you a student?

I've actually just finished my training. I'm a hairdresser.

Oh, right. And one more question in this section. What is the reason for you coming into town today?

Actually it's not for shopping today, which would be my normal reason, but to see the dentist.

Right. Thanks.

Now in this last section I'd like you to give us some ideas about the facilities and arrangements in the city for getting to and from work, er, any suggestions you have for improvements.

Well, something I've thought about for some time is that when I do walk and I'm doing a later shift, I think the lighting should be better.

Yes, good point.

And of course, I think it's a real shame they've been cutting down on the number of footpaths. They should have more of those. Then people would walk more.

Yes, right.

And, I don't think there are enough trains. That's why I don't use them - you have to wait so long.

Thanks. And finally I'd like to ask your opinion on cycling. As you may know, there's a drive in the city to get more people to cycle to work.

Right.

But we realise that there are things which the council, but also employers, might do to help encourage workers to cycle to work.

Yep. Well, I have thought about it and where I work there are no safe places to leave your bikes.

OK.

And also, I'd have to cycle uphill and on a hot day I'd arrive at work pretty sweaty so I think I'd need a shower somewhere at work.

Right.

And I suppose the last thing is that I wouldn't be all that confident about cycling on such busy roads. I think I'd like to see you offering training for that, you know, I'd feel a lot better about starting if that was the case.

Well, that's very helpful. Thank you very much for your time.

No problem. Bye.

Audio script

Good morning. So, today's lecture is about a movement in modern architecture called biophilic design, a movement that has gone, in less than two decades, from a niche idea promoted by a handful of academics into a mainstream principle adopted by some of the largest commercial property developers in the world.

Now, biophilic design rests on the simple, though originally controversial, idea that human beings need regular sensory contact with nature in order to function well, that we are evolutionary creatures of forests and grasslands, not of windowless office cubicles. From that starting point, designers ask the question: what would a building look like if it actually took human contact with nature seriously? The argument that has captured commercial attention is the practical one, that biophilic buildings produce measurable gains in worker productivity. Productivity, ultimately, is what has persuaded the property developers, not aesthetics.

So, almost every biophilic project, you know, shares several features.

With that in mind, daylight is central. Maximising natural daylight throughout the interior, large windows, deep light wells, glass partitions instead of solid walls, central atria that bring sun into the heart of the building. Wherever possible, daylight replaces artificial lighting during working hours.

And living plants matter as well. Not a single decorative pot in the lobby, but plants throughout, at the workstation, on green walls running through the office, in interior planted courtyards. Living plants are central to the biophilic claim; without them, I mean, you essentially do not have a biophilic interior.

As for materiality, that also matters. Where the dominant materials in a conventional commercial building are steel, concrete and glass, biophilic interiors deliberately use exposed natural materials, and the standout choice is wood, in floors, ceilings, beams and wall panelling. Visible wood does most of the work in giving a biophilic interior its characteristic feel.

That is why two building types in particular have driven the spread of biophilic design.

In fact, airports, perhaps surprisingly, have been important early examples. The new generation of major Asian airports, and Singapore's Jewel Changi terminal is the obvious flagship, have integrated extensive indoor gardens, central tropical waterfalls, and walls of living plants directly into the passenger experience. Airports, with their long dwell times and stressed travellers, have been ideal demonstrators for the technology; they led early adoption rather than office headquarters, as some people assume.

And hospitals are another key building type. The biophilic literature on hospitals is now substantial, and the consistent finding is that patients in rooms with views of greenery, gardens, or natural light recover measurably faster than patients in equivalent rooms without those views. Length of stay drops, painkiller use drops, mood improves. Hospitals have therefore become a major arena for biophilic design over the past decade.

Well, the supporting evidence has shifted dramatically over the last fifteen years. The earliest biophilic claims were largely anecdotal; the recent evidence is hard physiology. The most cited finding is on stress hormones. Office workers in biophilic interiors show measurably lower levels of cortisol, the principal stress hormone, than matched workers in conventional offices. Reductions of fifteen to twenty per cent in cortisol are typical, and the effect persists across the working week.

Schools tell a similar story, but with a different headline measure. The crucial finding from school studies is on attendance. Classrooms with much higher natural light and direct views of greenery show meaningful reductions in absenteeism, pupil attendance rates rise, sometimes by several percentage points across the year. That school finding is about attendance rather than test scores, which are far harder to attribute.

But biophilic design is genuinely good, not free, and I want to be clear about the trade offs.

This means upfront cost is a limitation. Biophilic interiors typically add somewhere between five and fifteen per cent to the construction cost of a building, and that cost premium has been an obstacle to adoption in projects where the margins are tight. The cost question, more than any aesthetic concern, is what slows the spread of biophilic design.

And long term maintenance is another limitation. Living plants need watering, feeding, and periodic replacement. Water features need filtration. Living walls need horticultural specialists on contract. The ongoing maintenance overhead is substantial, and developers who installed biophilic features without budgeting properly for that maintenance have seen the features degrade visibly within five years.

So biophilic design is real, it is increasingly evidence based, and it is here to stay, but it is not a free lunch, and the cost and maintenance issues need honest discussion at the design stage.

Audio Script

Sophie: Professor Adams, well, the first thing that caught me out was the long gap between the invention of photography and its normal use in newspapers.

Professor Adams: What had you expected?

Sophie: I suppose I thought newspapers were simply waiting for the machinery to catch up. But that is not really what happened. For years, the means of reproducing photographs in print was there, at least in a workable form, and editors still preferred engravings based on photographs. It seems they trusted the familiar look of drawn images more than the new photographic one.

Marcus: I had the same false assumption, actually. I imagined the equipment was holding everything back.

Sophie: Yes, that surprised me too, to be honest.

Marcus: On a related point, I have been looking at the very early portrait photographers, you know, the ones working in the 1840s and 1850s in studios. I found it interesting how they fitted into society at the time.

Professor Adams: In what way?

Marcus: Well, they were using cameras, of course, and the sitters were real people, but the work sat much closer to painting than reporting. They charged like portrait painters, showed their work in galleries, and were discussed in the art pages. The idea of a photographer as someone gathering news comes later.

Sophie: Right, so they were treated almost as a new kind of portrait painter.

Sophie: Now, moving to the present, I think we need one section on the flood of images people see every day. Did you check the figures, Marcus?

Marcus: Yes, I checked them. The numbers are huge, billions of images going online daily.

Professor Adams: And where do you think the real risk lies?

Sophie: Well, not just in the number of images. I mean, I do not want to make it only about photo editing software, because that is too obvious. I keep coming back to the fact that a lot of people now enter the field with far less formal preparation than photographers used to have. The old apprenticeship route was not perfect, but it did teach people what could and could not be done in a news context.

Marcus: Yes, exactly. The professional filter is thinner than it was. That is what worries me too.

Marcus: And for the smartphone section, can we agree on our angle? I would not say phones have made professional photojournalists unnecessary. The major papers still employ serious photographers.

Sophie: I agree. I mean, the bigger change is what happens when a picture arrives from almost anyone, from almost anywhere. Editors then have to work out whether the scene, date and source are what the sender claims. That checking process has become much more demanding.

Marcus: Right.

Professor Adams: Good, agreement on that.

Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 25 to 30. [20 seconds] Now listen and answer questions 25 to 30.

Professor Adams: Right, for these six developments in the history of news photography. Think about what kind of shift each one caused. Was it mainly about what cameras and presses could do, what readers expected to see, or the rules around using images?

Sophie: The daguerreotype in 1839 feels like the starting point. I mean, before that, there just was not a practical photographic process that people could use reliably. Once that existed, the rest of the story became possible.

Marcus: Yes, basically, it changes the basic means of making an image.

Marcus: The wet plate process in the 1850s is similar in that sense, I suppose, though it comes a bit later. Exposure times became much shorter, and photographers could make negatives that were useful again, rather than treating every image as a single object.

Sophie: So, yes, that is still about the method becoming more workable.

Sophie: War photography is different, I think. With Fenton in the Crimea and then the Brady studio in the American Civil War, people were beginning to want more than written descriptions. They wanted visual evidence of events they had previously only imagined.

Marcus: Yes, I think so. The camera mattered, but the real pressure came from what readers were ready to look at.

Marcus: The rotogravure press around 1900 is a bit more complicated. It made large scale newspaper reproduction easier, but the interesting consequence for journalism was what happened afterwards. If the same photograph could appear across the country, newspapers had to settle who controlled it, who could reuse it, and under what conditions.

Sophie: That's an important consequence, actually.

Sophie: Colour photography after the war is more straightforward. Film and printing processes developed to the point where newspapers could gradually move beyond black and white.

Marcus: Yes, readers liked the result, but the possibility had to exist.

Marcus: Digital cameras are the tricky one, I think. The sensors were new, obviously, but in journalism the bigger change was the speed and quantity of pictures readers came to expect. Suddenly a story from almost anywhere felt incomplete without an image arriving almost immediately.

Sophie: Yes, in a way, people began to assume there would be a picture of nearly everything.

Professor Adams: Good. That gives you a useful classification without making the presentation too mechanical.

Audio Script

Maya: Now that we've done the research into tram systems, we need to decide how to organise the report.

Daniel: We should probably begin with what makes a network succeed. I used to think stop spacing would be the main thing, because if stops are too far apart people won't walk to them.

Maya: True, but the figures don't really put that at the top, do they?

Daniel: No. The clearest difference is between trams that have to crawl along with cars and buses, and trams that get their own space for most of the route. Once they are kept out of traffic, reliability improves, and people seem much more willing to use them.

Maya: That makes sense. A tram is not much use if it gets stuck like a bus.

Daniel: The other thing I underestimated was ticketing. In cities where one ticket covers the tram, bus and metro, passengers treat the tram as part of the whole journey. If they have to buy a separate tram ticket, usage is much lower.

Maya: That's a strong point.

Daniel: Exactly. Off peak discounts help a bit, but they don't transform a network. Low floor access is important, of course, but it is standard on new systems now, so it doesn't explain the difference between success and failure.

Maya: OK, that gives us enough for that section. What about recommendations for planners starting from scratch?

Daniel: I was tempted to say never mix trams with cars, but that is too absolute. Some good networks share central streets and still work.

Maya: Then what should we emphasise?

Daniel: Start modestly, but make the first line excellent. The systems that began with one frequent, reliable corridor had something solid to build on. The cities that launched several lines at once often struggled to make the service feel dependable.

Maya: Yes, prove the first line works before extending it.

Daniel: And routes need to match where people already live. If the housing is too spread out, a tram line looks impressive on a map but does not attract enough daily passengers.

Maya: Yes, they'd need to align.

Daniel: Exactly. I don't think we need to insist on a flat fare, and buying the newest fleet immediately is not really the central issue.

Maya: Good, those recommendations feel defensible. Shall we look at the city examples now?

Before you hear the rest of the conversation, you have some time to look at questions 25 to 30. [20 seconds] Now listen and answer questions 25 to 30.

Daniel: Yes. Melbourne is the obvious one to start with. It is enormous, but it does not feel chaotic. The routes form a clear grid, central sections often have their own space, and people can work out when the next tram is likely to come.

Maya: So it is big, but still legible.

Daniel: Lisbon is a surprise. You'd expect those old hill trams to be kept mainly for nostalgia, or even to have disappeared, but visitors have turned them into a serious earner for the city.

Maya: Yes, tourism has changed the whole financial picture. Vienna is trickier. We both agree it works brilliantly, but not on the explanation.

Daniel: I keep coming back to the frequency. You rarely wait long.

Maya: Whereas I think the dense housing and compact streets are doing at least as much work.

Daniel: We can present both readings.

Maya: Toronto?

Daniel: Long history, loyal users, but the recent graph is frustrating. It hasn't collapsed, but it hasn't really climbed either, even while the city has kept growing.

Maya: Yes, it is stuck rather than failing.

Daniel: Edinburgh is the cautionary tale. The first line was late and expensive, and the Newhaven extension has not yet repaired the reputation. The early reviews talk about weak passenger numbers and reliability problems.

Maya: Not exactly the reset they wanted. And Bordeaux?

Daniel: The first phase was strong, but then the city added branches faster than demand could justify. Some of the newer lines run into areas where there just aren't enough regular riders.

Maya: That explains the problem.

Daniel: Exactly.

Audio Script

Okay, last week we started looking at marsupials, including kangaroos and possums. So today I'd like us to have a look at another marsupial, the wombat. And in particular, at some studies that have been done on a particular type of wombat whose Latin name is Vombatus ursinus. This is commonly known as the common wombat or bare nosed wombat, because it has a hairless nose pad, in contrast with the hairy nosed species.

Now, the common wombat itself is worth describing in some detail. Common wombats live in southern and south eastern Australia, where they're still relatively common. Unlike most other marsupials, which are largely arboreal or hopping in lifestyle, wombats are short legged, heavy bodied burrowers. They're mostly grey brown in colour, but what's particularly distinctive about them is their teeth, which grow continuously throughout their entire lives, like those of rodents, and that has all sorts of consequences for their diet and dental health, as we'll see in a minute. And, you know, they're much heavier than most other marsupials of their size, with a thick set body and a famously cube shaped scat.

In terms of diet, they have quite a varied feeding repertoire, including bark and roots, but they mostly eat grasses of various kinds. Now, even though they're quite large and powerful, with strong jaws that can chew through tough fibrous stems, they still have a few predators. Large birds of prey were one of the main ones for the young, but nowadays adults are more likely to be caught and killed by dingoes, particularly during droughts when food is scarce. Another threat to their survival isn't a predator at all, but is man made: quite a large number of common wombats are killed by cars when they're trying to cross country roads at dusk.

So one study carried out by Dr Naomi Coltrane at the University of New England investigated the methods of navigation of these wombats. Although they move slowly, they can travel long distances between feeding patches, and they always return to the same burrow systems. She found that even if individual wombats were taken some distance away from their home territory, they could usually find their way back home as long as they could detect a clear scent trail along the route, they didn't need any visual landmarks at all. The animals would stop, lift their heads, sniff the air, and then move with real confidence in a particular direction, even in low light.

Now, observations of these wombats in the wild have also revealed that their living habits are quite unusual. Unlike most ground dwelling mammals of their size, it seems that they're relatively settled, returning to the same burrow year after year. Generations of wombats can use the same burrow for decades. The male and female don't share the burrow most of the year, but they do come together at the same site during the mating season.

Well, it's quite interesting to think about the possible reasons for the male staying around in mating season. It could be that it's to do with protecting the young. You'd expect them to have a much better chance of survival if both parents are around. But in fact, observers have noted that, once the babies have left the pouch and are independent, there's very little interaction between the male and his young. So there isn't really any evidence to support the parental protection idea.

So another suggestion, then, is based on the observation that male wombats which return to the same burrow tend to be larger and more aggressive than other males. So maybe the male wombats stay around so they can give the female access to the safety of the burrow, and so provide a kind of shelter from rival males that try to drive her out. But again, we're not really sure.

Now, another study involved collecting data by tracking the wombats. I mean, I was actually involved in this myself. We caught some wombats in the wild, gently, in box traps, and we developed a small GPS unit that would allow us to track them. We fitted this onto their collar, a soft padded harness around the neck. Then we set the wombats free again, and we were able to track them for thirty days and gather data, not just about their location, but even about the number of encounters they had with other wombats during the night.

Okay, one surprising thing we discovered from this is that there were far fewer encounters between wombats than we had 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 wombats can cause quite serious injuries to one another in territorial disputes, a wombat's head and shoulders are heavily armoured, and they can deliver a painful charge. So maybe this active avoidance is a way of preventing direct conflict. But we need to collect a lot more data before we can be sure of any of this.