Like many creatures, humpback whales migrate long distances for feeding and mating purposes. How animals manage to migrate long distances is often puzzling. In the case of humpback whales, we may have found the answer: they may be navigating by the stars, much as early human sailors did. What we know about humpback whales makes this a distinct possibility.
First, humpback whales seem to be intelligent enough to use stars to navigate by. Whales' brains have a high degree of complexity'a common determiner of intelligence. This suggests that the whales' brain power far exceeds that of most other animals. The whales' well-developed cognitive ability seems to provide a sound basis for the ability to use a complex, abstract system of sensory stimuli such as the night sky for orientation.
Second, humpback whales migrate in straight lines. Animals can maintain movement in a straight direction for long distances only if they orient themselves by some external objects or forces. Many birds and other terrestrial creatures, for example, use physical landmarks to help them stay on track as they migrate. Whales, which swim in the open ocean, cannot rely on land features; they could, however, rely on stars at night to provide them with external signs by which to maintain direction over long distances.
Third, humpback whales exhibit an unusual behavior: they are sometimes observed floating straight up for minutes at a time, their heads above the water as though they were looking upward. The behavior is known as spy-hopping, and it is very rare among marine animals. One explanation for the function of spy-hopping is that the whales are looking at the stars, which are providing them with information to navigate by.
In the article, the author assumes that the humpback whales use stars to navigate the ocean. He presents three different reasons for his assumption. The lecturer, calls the reasons unconvincing and proceeds to argue against them.
First, the article points that the whales are intelligent enough to use stars for navigation. The lecturer, argues against this by explaining there is no real connection between intelligence and star navigation. Using birds as an example he explains that ducks with their mediocre cognitive ability use stars for navigation and this ability is merely an ability they were born with. Therefore, the ability to navigate using stars has no relevance to intelligence.
Second, The humpback whales are known to migrate in an straight line and animals need external cues to stay move within a straight line. The author, believes the external factor are the stars. However, the lecturer points out that there is a substance called Biomagnetite in the brain of humpback whales which makes them sensitive to earths magnetic field. Hence, the external force helping them to travel in a straight line is most likely the earths magnetic field.
Third, spy hopping is introduced as the last reason by the passage pointing that humpback whales use it as a means of looking at the stars to navigate. The lecturer points out that there exists many other species that spy-hop like sharks and sharks don't migrate they just use spy-hopping to help them hunt and in many cases humpback whales spy-hop during the day when there are no stars. Therefore, humpback whales spy-hopping for navigation porposes is pure speculation.
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Comments
Essay evaluations by e-grader
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 53, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...humpback whales are known to migrate in an straight line and animals need external...
^^
Line 4, column 249, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ies that spy-hop like sharks and sharks dont migrate they just use spy-hopping to he...
^^^^
Line 4, column 318, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'cases'' or 'case's'?
Suggestion: cases'; case's
...y-hopping to help them hunt and in many cases humpback whales spy-hop during the day ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, hence, however, if, look, second, so, therefore, third, in many cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 12.0772626932 75% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 22.412803532 89% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 30.3222958057 102% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 5.01324503311 219% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1373.0 1373.03311258 100% => OK
No of words: 266.0 270.72406181 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16165413534 5.08290768461 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.03850299372 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59398768661 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 141.0 145.348785872 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.53007518797 0.540411800872 98% => OK
syllable_count: 422.1 419.366225166 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 3.25607064018 31% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 2.5761589404 39% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 21.2450331126 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.6879379942 49.2860985944 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.0714285714 110.228320801 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.0 21.698381199 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.42857142857 7.06452816374 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 4.19205298013 72% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 4.45695364238 45% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.27373068433 140% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.210102525507 0.272083759551 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.076953884644 0.0996497079465 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0583799236371 0.0662205650399 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.122708687006 0.162205337803 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0344511841141 0.0443174109184 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 13.3589403974 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 53.8541721854 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.0289183223 97% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.2367328918 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.26 8.42419426049 98% => OK
difficult_words: 62.0 63.6247240618 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.498013245 91% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 Out of 30
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.
Grammar and spelling errors:
Line 3, column 53, Rule ID: EN_A_VS_AN
Message: Use 'a' instead of 'an' if the following word doesn't start with a vowel sound, e.g. 'a sentence', 'a university'
Suggestion: a
...humpback whales are known to migrate in an straight line and animals need external...
^^
Line 4, column 249, Rule ID: EN_CONTRACTION_SPELLING
Message: Possible spelling mistake found
Suggestion: don't
...ies that spy-hop like sharks and sharks dont migrate they just use spy-hopping to he...
^^^^
Line 4, column 318, Rule ID: POSSESIVE_APOSTROPHE[1]
Message: Possible typo: apostrophe is missing. Did you mean 'cases'' or 'case's'?
Suggestion: cases'; case's
...y-hopping to help them hunt and in many cases humpback whales spy-hop during the day ...
^^^^^
Transition Words or Phrases used:
first, hence, however, if, look, second, so, therefore, third, in many cases
Attributes: Values AverageValues Percentages(Values/AverageValues)% => Comments
Performance on Part of Speech:
To be verbs : 11.0 10.4613686534 105% => OK
Auxiliary verbs: 1.0 5.04856512141 20% => OK
Conjunction : 6.0 7.30242825607 82% => OK
Relative clauses : 9.0 12.0772626932 75% => More relative clauses wanted.
Pronoun: 20.0 22.412803532 89% => OK
Preposition: 31.0 30.3222958057 102% => OK
Nominalization: 11.0 5.01324503311 219% => Less nominalizations (nouns with a suffix like: tion ment ence ance) wanted.
Performance on vocabulary words:
No of characters: 1373.0 1373.03311258 100% => OK
No of words: 266.0 270.72406181 98% => OK
Chars per words: 5.16165413534 5.08290768461 102% => OK
Fourth root words length: 4.03850299372 4.04702891845 100% => OK
Word Length SD: 2.59398768661 2.5805825403 101% => OK
Unique words: 141.0 145.348785872 97% => OK
Unique words percentage: 0.53007518797 0.540411800872 98% => OK
syllable_count: 422.1 419.366225166 101% => OK
avg_syllables_per_word: 1.6 1.55342163355 103% => OK
A sentence (or a clause, phrase) starts by:
Pronoun: 1.0 3.25607064018 31% => OK
Article: 10.0 8.23620309051 121% => OK
Subordination: 0.0 1.25165562914 0% => More adverbial clause wanted.
Conjunction: 0.0 1.51434878587 0% => OK
Preposition: 1.0 2.5761589404 39% => More preposition wanted as sentence beginning.
Performance on sentences:
How many sentences: 14.0 13.0662251656 107% => OK
Sentence length: 19.0 21.2450331126 89% => OK
Sentence length SD: 48.6879379942 49.2860985944 99% => OK
Chars per sentence: 98.0714285714 110.228320801 89% => OK
Words per sentence: 19.0 21.698381199 88% => OK
Discourse Markers: 5.42857142857 7.06452816374 77% => OK
Paragraphs: 4.0 4.09492273731 98% => OK
Language errors: 3.0 4.19205298013 72% => OK
Sentences with positive sentiment : 6.0 4.33554083885 138% => OK
Sentences with negative sentiment : 2.0 4.45695364238 45% => More negative sentences wanted.
Sentences with neutral sentiment: 6.0 4.27373068433 140% => OK
What are sentences with positive/Negative/neutral sentiment?
Coherence and Cohesion:
Essay topic to essay body coherence: 0.210102525507 0.272083759551 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence: 0.076953884644 0.0996497079465 77% => OK
Sentence topic coherence SD: 0.0583799236371 0.0662205650399 88% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence: 0.122708687006 0.162205337803 76% => OK
Paragraph topic coherence SD: 0.0344511841141 0.0443174109184 78% => OK
Essay readability:
automated_readability_index: 12.4 13.3589403974 93% => Automated_readability_index is low.
flesch_reading_ease: 52.19 53.8541721854 97% => OK
smog_index: 8.8 5.55761589404 158% => OK
flesch_kincaid_grade: 10.7 11.0289183223 97% => OK
coleman_liau_index: 12.65 12.2367328918 103% => OK
dale_chall_readability_score: 8.26 8.42419426049 98% => OK
difficult_words: 62.0 63.6247240618 97% => OK
linsear_write_formula: 7.5 10.7273730684 70% => OK
gunning_fog: 9.6 10.498013245 91% => OK
text_standard: 13.0 11.2008830022 116% => OK
What are above readability scores?
---------------------
Rates: 80.0 out of 100
Scores by essay e-grader: 24.0 Out of 30
---------------------
Note: the e-grader does NOT examine the meaning of words and ideas. VIP users will receive further evaluations by advanced module of e-grader and human graders.