Octopuses and fish work together: BBC Learning English from the News

From BBC Learning English

this is learning English from the News, our podcast about the news headlines.

In this programme,

the strange way that octopuses and fish work together.

Hello, I'm Neil.

And I'm Pippa.

In this programme, we look at one news story

and the vocabulary in the headlines that will help you understand it.

You can find all the vocabulary and headlines from this episode,

as well as a worksheet on our website:

bbclearningenglish.com.

So let's hear more about this story.

Scientists have discovered fish

and octopuses that work together to hunt for food.

During dives in the Red sea,

a team of scientists filmed octopuses and fish for 120 hours.

They say the videos show octopuses, which are usually thought of

as solitary creatures, working together with other fish to catch more food,

like small fish and shellfish.

Let's have our first headline.

This one's from Nature, an academic science magazine.

Octopuses and fish caught on camera hunting as a team.

And that headline again from Nature,

that's an academic science magazine.

Octopuses and fish caught on camera hunting as a team.

We're looking at the phrase caught on camera.

And this is talking about the videos that the scientists took

as part of their research.

So we have caught, which is the past of the verb to catch.

And it has lots of meanings.

So we can catch a ball, we can catch a criminal,

and we can catch someone doing something. That means we discover

or see them doing something we didn't know about,

maybe something wrong or unexpected.

For example, my wife caught me having an extra biscuit

even though I'm supposed to be eating healthily.

Oh dear. So if something is caught on camera,

it means the video shows something unexpected.

Think of it like video evidence. Neil,

you might deny that you've been eating extra biscuits,

but if it was caught on camera, we would know that you were lying.

Now, caught on camera is a common expression, and we usually use it if

someone or something like the octopus doesn't know they're being filmed.

A similar phrase is to catch someone in the act.

This means to catch someone in the middle of doing something bad

or surprising.

So when your wife found out you were eating the biscuits,

did she catch you in the act, Neil?

  Yes.

I had my hand in the biscuit jar, and so she caught me in the act.

I was actually stealing the biscuits at that moment.

We've had caught on camera, discovered doing something

through a photo or video recording.

For example, my cat was caught on camera scratching the sofa.

He's so naughty.

This is learning English from The News, our podcast about the news headlines.

Today we're talking about octopuses and fish working together.

Now, the videos taken by the scientists showed the octopuses

and fish working together.

But they don't always get on well with each other.

No they don't. One video shows an octopus punching a fish.

That means hitting it.

Now, scientists believe that fish was not working as part of the team.

And we have a headline about the punching octopus.

This one is from Cosmos, a science magazine based in Australia.

Octopus packs a punch to direct hunting groups.

That headline again.

Octopus packs a punch to direct hunting groups.

That's from Cosmos, a science magazine based in Australia.

And we're looking at the expression packs a punch.

Yes. If something packs a punch, it means it has a lot of power or effect.

Yes. And pack a punch is a metaphorical phrase,

and we use it in lots of different situations.

So for example, uh, we can use it to talk about flavour.

I could say that my chicken curry packs a punch.

It means it's quite spicy.

Yes. Or we can use packs a punch to talk about music, books or art.

For example, I read a book last week and the ending really packed a punch.

I was thinking about it for ages afterwards.

In the headline, though, packs a punch is metaphorical and literal.

The octopus packs a punch metaphorically because it's very effective

at hunting with the fish, but it also packs a punch literally,

as it will sometimes punch the fish that aren't working as part of the team.

We had packs a punch has a lot of power or effect.

For example, my presentation at work really needs to pack a punch to convince more people about my idea.

This is Learning English from the News from BBC Learning English.

We're talking about octopuses that punch and fish that hunt.

As we've heard, scientists have found

that octopuses and fish work together to hunt better.

Scientists found that even though the octopus had been filmed punching

individual fish, there's not one leader in the team

and the different species work together to make decisions.

They want to study the underwater behaviour more, to find out whether

octopuses can remember certain fish who've been bad teammates in the past.

Let's have another headline. Fish join forces with octopuses to hunt,

but get a sucker punch if they slack off.

That's from The Times in the UK.

And that headline again. Fish join forces with octopuses to hunt, but

get a sucker punch if they slack off.

That's from The Times, a newspaper in the UK.

So this headline is talking about the teamwork between the fish and octopuses,

they join forces. And the sucker punch in one of the videos.

This is just an unexpected punch.

But we're interested in the expression slack off.

What does that mean, Pippa?

Well, if someone slacks off, it means they stop working hard.

Maybe they're lazy or they don't work as part of a team,

but they're not working as hard as they should be or as hard as they used to.

Yes, slack off is an informal phrase to say that someone isn't working hard.

For example, if someone slacks off work, they might go for a long lunch

or waste time in the office talking to everyone.

Yeah, and we can also call someone a slacker,

and this is slang for someone that's lazy or doesn't work hard enough.

So in the story, the headline writer is saying that some of the fish slack off,

they don't work hard enough as part of the team,

which is why the scientists think the octopuses decide to punch them.

We've had slack off,

stop working hard.

For example, I used to go for a run every week,

but I've been slacking off lately.

That's it for this episode of Learning English from the news.

We'll be back next week for another news story.

If you've enjoyed this programme, why not try our Learning English

for Work podcast to improve your English at work. Search Learning English

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Goodbye for now.

Bye.