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学霸导读 你知道长颈鹿身上为什么会有斑点吗？让我们一起来看看科学家们的发现吧！
Do you know why giraffes have spots （斑点）, or why their spots have certain shapes? Until recently, scientists didn’t know, either. So, several years ago, a team of researchers traveled deep into Africa to find out why. They s 1 dozens of young giraffes and their mothers. By using special software, they were a 2 to analyze （分析） and compare spots on different giraffes.
They determined that young giraffes got their spot patterns from their mothers. For e 3 , mothers with smooth and round spots usually hadb 4 with smooth and round spots,too. The scientists also found out that certain types of spots can help giraffes when they’re young.
That’s because specific spots can help them hide better from hungry predators （捕食性动物） .As a matter of f 5 , giraffes with larger and less smooth spots usually live longer. Spots may also help keep giraffes from getting too hot and may have other purposes yet to be d 6 .
There’s still so much we don’t know about giraffes and o 7 mammals （哺乳动物）.
This finding might be the beginning of exciting new research about giraffes that will tell us things we didn’t know before.
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certain
adj.
特定的
until
conj.
到……时
recently
adv.
最近
researcher
n.
研究员
travel
v.
旅行；游历
compare
v.
比较；对比
specific
adj.
明确的；具体的
hide
v.
藏；躲避
finding
n.
发现
beginning
n.
开头，开端