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科学美国人60秒 SSS 动物在黑暗中发出声音?

时间:2020-02-14 01:52:32

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(单词翻译)

Did Animal Calls Start in the Dark?

The animal kingdom is a noisy place. There's bird song,  choruses of frogs , and lots of lesser1 known sounds… like the ray-gun-like sounds of baby alligators3 hatching and calling for mom.  (There's lots of videos of them doing this on YouTube if you are curious.)

动物王国是一个嘈杂的地方。有鸟鸣,青蛙的合唱声,还有很多不为人知的声音,比如短吻鳄幼崽孵化和呼唤妈妈时发出的类似雷鸣枪的声音。(如果你好奇的话,YouTube上有很多他们这样的视频。)

"When I was a kid growing up, I had a pet alligator2. It vocalized a lot." John Wiens, an evolutionary4 ecologist at the University of Arizona. "So I had this baby alligator when I was a teenager, sometimes I could hear "urh urh urh urh," and when they grow up they make bellows5 and slaps and all sorts of sounds."

“我小时候养过一只鳄鱼当宠物。它发出很多声音。”约翰·维恩斯是亚利桑那大学的进化生态学家。“我十几岁的时候养了一只小鳄鱼,有时我能听到‘啊,啊,啊,啊’,等它们长大了,就会发出吼声、拍打声和各种声音。”

Wiens and his collaborator6 Zhuo Chen wondered: why did animals start vocalizing in the first place? One hypothesis was that the ability originated in nocturnal animals. Cause, you know, sound works a lot better than colors or horns or other visual cues when you can’t see.

Wiens和他的合作者Zhuo Chen想知道:为什么动物一开始就会发声?一种假设是这种能力起源于夜行动物。因为,你知道,当看不见的时候,声音比颜色、喇叭或其他视觉提示更有效。

Wiens and Chen built an evolutionary tree of nearly 1800 vertebrate species, and mapped onto it information on whether each lived by day or night, and whether they made sound.  

维恩斯和陈建立了一个包含近1800种脊椎动物物种的进化树,并在上面绘制了它们生活在白天还是夜晚,以及它们是否发声的信息。

"So one of the things we did then was to do a statistical7 correlation8 between the evolution of acoustic9 communication, and whether they were active by day or by night. And we found a very strong relationship. Those that are active at night, tend to evolve acoustic communication." Suggesting that the nocturnal notion was more than just a shot in the dark.

“因此,我们当时做的一件事是做一个统计相关性之间的演变声通信,以及他们是否在白天或晚上活跃。我们发现了一种非常牢固的关系。那些在晚上活动的,倾向于进化成声音交流。”表明夜间活动的概念不仅仅是在黑暗中拍摄的。

The findings are in the journal Nature Communications.

这项研究结果发表在《自然通讯》杂志上。

This ability to vocalize likely arose independently, multiple times, hundreds of millions of years ago—in frogs, mammals, geckos, and birds and crocodilians. And though vocalization might have originated with nocturnal animals, some night-dwellers seem to have lost the ability—like pangolins. While others, which evolved to be active by day, retained it. Like, of course, you and me.

这种发声能力可能是在数亿年前独立地、多次地出现在青蛙、哺乳动物、壁虎、鸟类和鳄鱼中。尽管发声能力可能起源于夜行动物,但一些夜行动物似乎已经丧失了像穿山甲一样的能力。而另一些进化为白天活动的动物则保留了这种能力。当然,其中也包括你和我。


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 lesser UpxzJL     
adj.次要的,较小的;adv.较小地,较少地
参考例句:
  • Kept some of the lesser players out.不让那些次要的球员参加联赛。
  • She has also been affected,but to a lesser degree.她也受到波及,但程度较轻。
2 alligator XVgza     
n.短吻鳄(一种鳄鱼)
参考例句:
  • She wandered off to play with her toy alligator.她开始玩鳄鱼玩具。
  • Alligator skin is five times more costlier than leather.鳄鱼皮比通常的皮革要贵5倍。
3 alligators 0e8c11e4696c96583339d73b3f2d8a10     
n.短吻鳄( alligator的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Two alligators rest their snouts on the water's surface. 两只鳄鱼的大嘴栖息在水面上。 来自辞典例句
  • In the movement of logs by water the lumber industry was greatly helped by alligators. 木材工业过去在水上运输木料时所十分倚重的就是鳄鱼。 来自辞典例句
4 evolutionary Ctqz7m     
adj.进化的;演化的,演变的;[生]进化论的
参考例句:
  • Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
  • These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。
5 bellows Ly5zLV     
n.风箱;发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的名词复数 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫v.发出吼叫声,咆哮(尤指因痛苦)( bellow的第三人称单数 );(愤怒地)说出(某事),大叫
参考例句:
  • His job is to blow the bellows for the blacksmith. 他的工作是给铁匠拉风箱。 来自辞典例句
  • You could, I suppose, compare me to a blacksmith's bellows. 我想,你可能把我比作铁匠的风箱。 来自辞典例句
6 collaborator gw3zSz     
n.合作者,协作者
参考例句:
  • I need a collaborator to help me. 我需要个人跟我合作,帮我的忙。
  • His collaborator, Hooke, was of a different opinion. 他的合作者霍克持有不同的看法。
7 statistical bu3wa     
adj.统计的,统计学的
参考例句:
  • He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
  • They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。
8 correlation Rogzg     
n.相互关系,相关,关连
参考例句:
  • The second group of measurements had a high correlation with the first.第二组测量数据与第一组高度相关。
  • A high correlation exists in America between education and economic position.教育和经济地位在美国有极密切的关系。
9 acoustic KJ7y8     
adj.听觉的,声音的;(乐器)原声的
参考例句:
  • The hall has a fine acoustic.这个大厅的传音效果很好。
  • Animals use a whole rang of acoustic, visual,and chemical signals in their systems of communication.动物利用各种各样的听觉、视觉和化学信号来进行交流。

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