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科学美国人60秒 SSS 一些乌鸦会攻击死去的同伴

时间:2019-09-29 06:33:50

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(单词翻译)

This is Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Jason G. Goldman.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学。我是杰森·古德曼。

Crows react really strongly to one of their own being dead—including gathering1 around their deceased comrades. Some experts believe that these so-called crow funerals are efforts to learn. Perhaps so they can avoid the same fate.

乌鸦对自已同伴死亡的反应非常强烈,包括聚集在死去同伴的周围。一些专家认为,这些所谓的乌鸦葬礼是它们在努力学习。也许这样它们就可以避免同样的命运。

University of Washington researcher Kaeli Swift is one of those crow experts. When a film crew came to her campus to record these behaviors, Swift and her colleagues placed a dead crow on the grass. And they waited for the crows to show up and investigate. Just as they had done hundreds of previous times.

华盛顿大学的研究员凯莉·斯威夫特就是持这种观点的其中一名乌鸦专家。当一个摄制组来到华盛顿大学拍摄乌鸦的这些行为时,斯威夫特和同事将一只死乌鸦放在了草地上。他们等待乌鸦出现,然后研究它们的行为。就像他们以前做过的数百次实验一样。

"The first bird came in, like they do, and I'm bracing2 myself for what I'm expecting to be the typical response. Which is that it alights in a tree, and it alarm calls, and then other birds come in...but instead what it does is it flies down to the ground, and it kind of walks up to the crow...but then it goes into really typical crow precopulatory posturing3. Where basically they kind of drop their wings down, and they stick their tails up, and they strut4. And it just struts5 on over to the dead crow and jumps on top and copulates with it."

“第一只如往常一样飞了过来,我做好准备,等待我期待出现的那种典型反应。就是乌鸦从树上飞下来,发出警报声,然后其他乌鸦听到警报后赶过来,但那只乌鸦没有这样做,它的确飞到了地上,然后走向死去的同伴,可是随后它做出了典型的交配前姿势。基本上来说,这种姿势就是乌鸦垂下翅膀,翘起尾巴,然后趾高气扬地走。它趾高气扬地向死乌鸦走去,然后跳到死去同伴的身上和它交配。”

Neither Swift nor her advisor6 had ever heard of this behavior. So they decided7 to determine just how common it is by conducting a series of experiments with wild crows in Seattle. They saw that most crows don't touch their dead—they observed physical contact roughly a quarter of the time. And sexual contact occurred less than five percent of the time. The finding is in the journal Philosophical8 Transactions of the Royal Society B.

斯威夫特和她的导师从来没有听说过这种行为。因此,他们决定对西雅图野生乌鸦进行一系列实验,来确定这种行为的普遍性。他们发现,大多数乌鸦不会触碰死亡同伴,他们观察到的身体接触率约为25%。性接触的发生率不足5%。这项研究结果发表在《英国皇家学会B辑·哲学学报》上。

There's a twist that may be instructive: the crows' sexual behaviors were often combined with aggressive ones—not something that usually happens during mating encounters. And this was most frequent early in the breeding season. The researchers therefore wonder if some extremely hormonal9 crows may be unable to suppress one set of behaviors while expressing the other.

这里有一个可能具有启发意义的转折:乌鸦的性行为通常与攻击性行为相结合——而不是在交配偶遇过程中经常发生的事。这在繁殖早期最为频繁。因此研究人员想知道,某些受极端荷尔蒙影响的乌鸦是否在表达一系列行为时无法抑制另一系列行为。

"Maybe these birds, because of these hormonal influences, are so incredibly territorial10, they're so quick to take advantage of any opportunity for an extra-pair copulation, which is something we know crows engage in...but the part about this that makes it so exciting is we were actually able to quantify how frequent this behavior is. And that's completely brand new to science in any vertebrate animal."

“也许因为受到这些荷尔蒙的影响,这些乌鸦的地盘意识变得极强,它们会迅速利用一切机会进行配偶外交配,我们知道乌鸦会这样做,但是这件事如此令人兴奋的原因是,我们可以量化这种行为的频繁程度。这对任何脊椎动物学来说,都是全新的发现。”

Thanks for listening for Scientific American — 60-Second Science. I'm Jason G. Goldman.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是杰森·古德曼。


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 gathering ChmxZ     
n.集会,聚会,聚集
参考例句:
  • He called on Mr. White to speak at the gathering.他请怀特先生在集会上讲话。
  • He is on the wing gathering material for his novels.他正忙于为他的小说收集资料。
2 bracing oxQzcw     
adj.令人振奋的
参考例句:
  • The country is bracing itself for the threatened enemy invasion. 这个国家正准备奋起抵抗敌人的入侵威胁。
  • The atmosphere in the new government was bracing. 新政府的气氛是令人振奋的。
3 posturing 1785febcc47e6193be90be621fdf70d9     
做出某种姿势( posture的现在分词 )
参考例句:
  • She was posturing a model. 她正在摆模特儿的姿势。
  • She says the President may just be posturing. 她说总统也许只是在做样子而已。
4 strut bGWzS     
v.肿胀,鼓起;大摇大摆地走;炫耀;支撑;撑开;n.高视阔步;支柱,撑杆
参考例句:
  • The circulation economy development needs the green science and technology innovation as the strut.循环经济的发展需要绿色科技创新生态化作为支撑。
  • Now we'll strut arm and arm.这会儿咱们可以手挽着手儿,高视阔步地走了。
5 struts 540eee6c95a0ea77a4cb260db42998e7     
(框架的)支杆( strut的名词复数 ); 支柱; 趾高气扬的步态; (尤指跳舞或表演时)卖弄
参考例句:
  • The struts are firmly braced. 那些支柱上得很牢靠。
  • The Struts + EJB framework is described in part four. 三、介绍Struts+EJB框架的技术组成:Struts框架和EJB组件技术。
6 advisor JKByk     
n.顾问,指导老师,劝告者
参考例句:
  • They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
  • The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。
7 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
8 philosophical rN5xh     
adj.哲学家的,哲学上的,达观的
参考例句:
  • The teacher couldn't answer the philosophical problem.老师不能解答这个哲学问题。
  • She is very philosophical about her bad luck.她对自己的不幸看得很开。
9 hormonal Fcpx6     
adj.激素的
参考例句:
  • Some viral diseases are more severe during pregnancy, probably tecause of hormonal changes. 有些病毒病在妊娠期间比较严重,可能是由于激素变化引起的。
  • She underwent surgical intervention and a subsequent short period of hormonal therapy. 他接受外科手术及随后短暂荷尔蒙治疗。
10 territorial LImz4     
adj.领土的,领地的
参考例句:
  • The country is fighting to preserve its territorial integrity.该国在为保持领土的完整而进行斗争。
  • They were not allowed to fish in our territorial waters.不允许他们在我国领海捕鱼。

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