Deer Cave, Malaysia

9/8/2022 2:09:08 PM
Deer cave | Cave photography, Sustainable tourism, Sarawak
Image: nationalgeographic.com

Do you know?

  • Deer Cave is over 2 kilometers in length and is never less than 90 meters high and wide.
  • Deer Cave is part of the Gunung Mulu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site characterized by amazing caves and karst formations in a mountainous equatorial rainforest setting.

Let's explore more about Deer Cave!

Let's learn some new words before you read the passage:

Listen and complete the passage.

dung massive devour
echolocation pile dusk


You probably wouldn’t want to visit Deer Cave in Malaysia. The cave is - so massive that it can hold more people than the largest football stadium on Earth. However, millions of bats live inside. Each night as falls, hundreds of thousands of bats from twelve different species fly out. They use to find and insects in the Malaysian rainforest. Each bat eats about one-third of an ounce of insects. Altogether, the bats eat about sixteen tons of insects every night! After the bugs are digested, the bats produce about five tons of fresh guano. That’s the name for bat waste.

The guano falls to the cave floor. It is the largest of bat in the world. This dung supplies food to tens of millions of cockroaches, flies, worms, centipedes, and millipedes. The dung is rich in nutrients. That’s why Deer Cave has the biggest population of cockroaches on Earth. There are so many roaches that the cave floor looks like a moving river of roaches. For this reason alone, Deer Cave is not likely to become a tourist attraction any time soon. However, the roaches and other small creatures provide food for millions of spiders, scorpions, and snakes.

Read and answer the following questions.

Deer Cave, Malaysia

Deer Cave is a cave in Gunung Mulu National Park. Image: alamy.com

You probably wouldn’t want to visit Deer Cave in Malaysia. The cave is massive - so massive that it can hold more people than the largest football stadium on Earth. However, millions of bats live inside. Each night as dusk falls, hundreds of thousands of bats from twelve different species fly out. They use echolocation to find and devour insects in the Malaysian rainforest. Each bat eats about one-third of an ounce of insects. Altogether, the bats eat about sixteen tons of insects every night! After the bugs are digested, the bats produce about five tons of fresh guano. That’s the name for bat waste.

The guano falls to the cave floor. It is the largest pile of bat dung in the world. This dung supplies food to tens of millions of cockroaches, flies, worms, centipedes, and millipedes. The dung is rich in nutrients. That’s why Deer Cave has the biggest population of cockroaches on Earth. There are so many roaches that the cave floor looks like a moving river of roaches. For this reason alone, Deer Cave is not likely to become a tourist attraction any time soon. However, the roaches and other small creatures provide food for millions of spiders, scorpions, and snakes.

Source: Daily Warm-ups - Nonfiction Reading Grade 6

What is NOT true according to the paragraph?

  • A dozen of bat species fly out of Deer Cave at dusk.
  • Deer Cave has more cockroaches than anywhere else on Earth.
  • Deer Cave is one of the best hotspots in the world.
  • Bats locate and find prey by using sound waves that echo.

According to the text, the roaches are mentioned as the food of _____.

  • worms
  • scorpions
  • flies
  • millipedes

Sixteen tons of insects after being digested by bats become _____.

  • ten tons of fresh guano that drops to the cave floor
  • the world's largest pile of bat waste that needs solving
  • a source of food for some particular animals
  • a kind of nutrition for plants in the cave

Deer Cave might not become a tourist attraction anytime soon because ______.

  • its view is not impressive and beautiful enough
  • creatures living there cause fear and discomfort
  • the entrance ticket to this cave is too expensive
  • there is a severe shortage of light and oxygen

Which of the following best describes the tone of the author?

  • critical
  • ironic
  • objective
  • speculative

Build your vocabulary by learning these intensive phrases/idioms

Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one, using the word in a bracket. You must use between THREE and FIVE words, including the word given. Do not change the word given.

The law must remain valid for every person in society, not just those who earn the most money. (HOLD)

=> The law must in society, not just those who earn the most money.

Choose the word(s) OPPOSITE in meaning to the underlined word(s).

So why does one company survive a recession while its competitors fall by the wayside?

  • dominate
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Whatever she did, she did off her own _____. It was nothing to do with me.

  • squirrel
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Complete the second sentence so that it has a similar meaning to the first one, using the word in a bracket. You must use between THREE and FIVE words, including the word given. Do not change the word given.

As soon as people get drunk, their sense will not exist any more. (WINDOW)

=> As soon as people get drunk, their sense will .