TPO 45 Integrated Writing Task

Both the reading passage and the professor in the lecture discuss about bee’s existence on Earth in 200 million years ago. The author of the reading presents three reasons regarding the old fossil structures found in the state of Arizona were not created by bees. In stark contrast, the professor argues against each of these points and shed light of their flaws.

The first point made in the reading is that bees' fossils that date to 200 million years ago have not been discovered yet. The lecturer, however, refutes this argument by contending that bees are not preserved rather than not existed. In fact, most bees have been preserved in tree raisins, but those trees were very rare in 200 million years ago. In this case, bees might have existed as early as 200 million years ago.

Another point the article puts emphasize on is that bees could not have existed 200 million years ago, as flowering plants, which are primary feed for today's bees, first appeared on Earth only 125 million years ago. On the other hand, the professor rebuts this statement by arguing that many bees lived on non-flowering plants at that time. She further explains that bees evolved and adapted to feeding on the flowers of flowering plants.

Finally, it is stated in the reading that the fossilized structures lack some traits of bees' nests such as a spiral pattern; hence, the fossilized structures cannot be made by bees. On the contrary, it is accentuated in the lecture that those structures are similar to modern bees' nest chambers because of chemical evidence. As a matter of fact, the nest of modern bees has special water proof chemicals, and the fossilized structures contains the same chemicals.