科学美国人60秒 SSS 啄木鸟为争夺领土开战

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Annie Sneed.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是安妮·斯尼德。

What you’re hearing is war—among woodpeckers, a species called acorn¹ woodpeckers. The birds fight long, bloody² battles over access to trees, where these woodpeckers nest and store their food: you guessed it, acorns³.

你听到的是啄木鸟间的战争，一种叫做橡实啄木鸟的物种。这些啄木鸟为争夺树上的位置而进行了漫长而血腥的战斗，啄木鸟在树上筑巢和储存食物:你猜对了，是橡子。

“They build these giant acorn granaries, and these are basically acorn-storage structures, where they store thousands of acorns every fall.”

“他们建造了这些巨大的橡子谷仓，这些基本上是橡子储存结构，每年秋天他们在那里储存数千个橡子。”

Sahas Barve, with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

萨哈斯·巴夫是史密森尼国家自然历史博物馆的研究员。

“In bark and in dead parts of trees, they make individual holes in which they store one acorn at a time. And some granaries may have tens of thousands of holes.”

它们在树皮和枯枝上挖洞，每次只在一个洞里储存一颗橡子。有些粮仓可能有成千上万个洞。”

When woodpeckers that hold high-quality territory die, others come to claim it for themselves. That’s when the fighting begins.

当拥有优质领地的啄木鸟死去时，其他啄木鸟就会占领它。那就是战斗开始的时候。

“It’s a lot of energy that they put in, and that sort of tells you how valuable the granaries are for them. They put in a lot of effort in the short term for this big long-term prize.”

“他们投入了大量的精力，这多少说明了粮仓对他们来说有多高的价值。他们在短期内付出了很多努力，以获得这个巨大的长期奖励。”

Barve and his colleagues tracked acorn woodpeckers during these power struggles. The researchers observed up to 12 groups of birds sparring for a single territory, typically with three or four birds per clan⁴. Individual birds may fight more than 10 hours a day for several days.

巴维和他的同事们追踪处于权力斗争中的橡实啄木鸟。研究人员观察到多达12组鸟类为争夺一块领地而争斗，通常每个部落有3或4只鸟。在持续几天内，每只鸟每天可能战斗超过10个小时。

“We didn’t know that bird conflicts could last that long; it’s really amazing. You can imagine the oak savanna⁵ of California—big oak trees.

“我们不知道鸟类争斗会持续那么长时间; 真的很神奇。你可以想象加利福尼亚的橡树稀树草原——大橡树。

And you can just hear birds calling, because they give these very distinct ‘wacka wacka’ calls when they are fighting each other.

你可以听到鸟儿的叫声，因为当它们互相争斗的时候，会发出非常独特的“哇卡 哇卡”叫声。

You can hear it from far away, because there are so many birds calling, and when you go closer, you see birds flying around pretty chaotically⁶.

你从很远的地方就能听到，因为有很多鸟在叫，当你走近时，你会看到鸟儿在乱飞。

There are birds posturing⁷, so most coalitions⁸ will group together, every now and then, and spread out their wings on a very prominent branch of the tree and show, basically, who they are and that they are together.

鸟类会摆出姿态，所以大多数联盟会时不时地聚集在一起，在非常突出的树枝上展开翅膀，基本上是为了表明它们是谁以及它们在一起。

But these conflicts are often very violent, so you will see birds with big injuries. So you’ll see bloodied⁹ feathers.

但是这些冲突通常非常激烈，所以你会看到鸟类受到严重的伤害。所以你会看到血迹斑斑的羽毛。

You can see eyes gouged¹⁰ out, birds with some injuries that are obviously fatal. We’ve seen birds with broken wings.

你可以看到它们的眼睛被挖出来，一些受伤的鸟显然有性命之忧。我们曾经见过折断翅膀的鸟。

And also birds fall to the ground fighting each other. Like I often say, these birds have spears for mouths, so they can do a lot of damage to each other.”

也有鸟落在地上互相争斗。就像我经常说的，这些鸟的嘴都是长矛，所以它们会对彼此造成很大的伤害。”

Other woodpeckers flew in from up to three kilometers away just to watch the fighting—and to glean¹¹ social information.

其他的啄木鸟从三公里外飞来，只是为了观看战斗，并收集社会信息。

The study is in the journal Current Biology.

这项研究发表在《当代生物学》杂志上。

The scientists say these battles reveal a lot about animal social behavior.

科学家们说，这些争斗揭示了很多动物的社会行为。

“We often think of birds as not very intelligent animals, but we are discovering, very quickly, that we are not the only busybody, nosy¹², supercurious social animal out there.

“我们经常认为鸟类不是非常聪明的动物，但我们很快发现，我们并不是唯一爱管闲事、好管闲事、超级好奇的群居动物。

And birds are doing that all the time. Social complexity¹³ is something that’s evolved multiple times in the animal kingdom, and we are just one of them.”

鸟类一直都在这样做。社会复杂性在动物王国里已经进化了很多次，而我们只是其中之一。”

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Annie Sneed.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是安妮·斯尼德。

1 acorn   

n.橡实，橡子

参考例句：

• The oak is implicit in the acorn.橡树孕育于橡子之中。
• The tree grew from a small acorn.橡树从一粒小橡子生长而来。

2 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

3 acorns   

n.橡子，栎实( acorn的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Great oaks from little acorns grow. 万丈高楼平地起。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Welcome to my new website!It may not look much at the moment, but great oaks from little acorns grow! 欢迎来到我的新网站。它现在可能微不足道，不过万丈高楼平地起嘛。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 clan   

n.氏族，部落，宗族，家族，宗派

参考例句：

• She ranks as my junior in the clan.她的辈分比我小。
• The Chinese Christians,therefore,practically excommunicate themselves from their own clan.所以，中国的基督徒简直是被逐出了自己的家族了。

5 savanna   

n.大草原

参考例句：

• The savanna is also the home of meat-eaters--the lion,leopard,and hyena who feed on the grasseaters.大草原也是食肉动物的家乡--狮子、豹、鬣狗--它们都是以草食动物维持生命的。
• They sped upon velvet wheels across an exhilarant savanna.他们的马车轻捷地穿过一片令人赏心悦目的大草原。

6 chaotically   

参考例句：

• His thoughts churned chaotically in his brain like snowflakes whirling about in the north wind. 头脑里，情思弥漫纷乱像个北风飘雪片的天空。 来自汉英文学 - 围城
• In metal the atoms are arranged not chaotically but in even rows, forming a crystal lattice. 在金属里，原子并不是杂乱无章地排列而是排成平整的行列，构成一个晶格。 来自辞典例句

7 posturing   

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。

8 coalitions   

结合体，同盟( coalition的名词复数 )； （两党或多党）联合政府

参考例句：

• History testifies to the ineptitude of coalitions in waging war. 历史昭示我们，多数国家联合作战，其进行甚为困难。
• All the coalitions in history have disintegrated sooner or later. 历史上任何联盟迟早都垮台了。

9 bloodied   

v.血污的( bloody的过去式和过去分词 )；流血的；屠杀的；残忍的

参考例句：

• his bruised and bloodied nose 他沾满血的青肿的鼻子
• His pants leg was torn and bloodied when he fell. 他跌交时裤腿破了，还染上了血。 来自辞典例句

10 gouged   

v.凿( gouge的过去式和过去分词 )；乱要价；（在…中）抠出…；挖出…

参考例句：

• The lion's claws had gouged a wound in the horse's side. 狮爪在马身一侧抓了一道深口。
• The lovers gouged out their names on the tree. 情人们把他们的名字刻在树上。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

11 glean   

v.收集(消息、资料、情报等)

参考例句：

• The little information that we could glean about them was largely contradictory.我们能够收集到的有关它们的少量信息大部分是自相矛盾的。
• From what I was able to glean,it appears they don't intend to take any action yet.根据我所收集到的资料分析，他们看来还不打算采取任何行动。

12 nosy   

adj.鼻子大的，好管闲事的，爱追问的；n.大鼻者

参考例句：

• Our nosy neighbours are always looking in through our windows.好管闲事的邻居总是从我们的窗口望进来。
• My landlord is so nosy.He comes by twice a month to inspect my apartment.我的房东很烦人，他每个月都要到我公寓视察两次。

13 complexity   

n.复杂(性)，复杂的事物

参考例句：

• Only now did he understand the full complexity of the problem.直到现在他才明白这一问题的全部复杂性。
• The complexity of the road map puzzled me.错综复杂的公路图把我搞糊涂了。