【英语语言学习】被83种不同种类的昆虫蛰伤

LINDA WERTHEIMER, HOST:

We're going to talk now to the king of sting. I borrowed that sobriquet¹ from the back cover of Justin Schmidt's new book. The book is called "The Sting Of The Wild." Schmidt is an entomologist, a student of bugs², especially Hymenoptera, a collection of stinging insects we know as ants, wasps³ and bees.

One result of his travels in pursuit of bugs which sting a little and bugs which sting a whole lot, he's developed a pain index for insect stings of this hemisphere, together with a flirty⁴ little paragraph describing what each one feels like. Dr. Schmidt joins us from Arizona Public Media in Tucson. Welcome to our program.

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be speaking with you.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: Now, I wanted to ask you about your pain scale. You rate pain from one to four with four being the worst pain. I gather this is based on personal experience?

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: The pain scale is pretty much mostly my own experience 'cause I'm the person who's been chasing a diversity of species more than anybody else.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: But you - you want these bugs to sting you, right? I mean, you invite them. You insist on it.

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: Want is kind of a dual⁵ word.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: (Laughter) Yeah.

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: I want the data, but I don't want the sting. Unfortunately, I don't know of any solution to that problem. So my solution has been to just charge in and, well, in the process, usually one of them obliges and stings you.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: (Laughter) So what was the scariest attempt you made to meet and be stung by one of your little bitty buddies⁶?

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: Well, one of the scariest, which I never got stung, was working with the giant Mandarin⁷ Japanese hornets.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: Holy cow.

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: These things are about two inches long. They're huge, absolutely enormous. And I was so worried about getting stung by those that I actually succeeded in doing a really nice couple of studies on them and never got stung. So that was, I guess you could say, disappointing in the respect that I'm missing a very valuable data point. But I'm also still intact.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: When you're trying to work out the pain scale - so you take the initial pain and then you also consider whether it lasts, whether it remains⁸ sore. Give us a sense of what this scale means.

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: Yeah, the scale relates only to the immediate⁹ acute pain, the first five minutes or 10 minutes, whatever, of the sting. Now the exceptions are some of them don't back off, like the harvester ants. They will sting you and they will hurt from four to eight hours. And so then I include the entire time that they're hurting. And of course, bullet ants are another exception that lasts 12 to 24 hours.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: That's the ant which gets a four and it gets its own chapter in your book, the bullet ant. Now, I don't think I've ever seen one. Tell me about them.

 

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: Bullet ants are wonderfully beautiful organisms. They live going from about Nicaragua down to southern Brazil. They're black and very stocky looking. I mean, you look at them and you say, this is kind of like a dinosaur¹⁰. This is a very primitive¹¹ looking ant.

But boy, don't let that deceive you because these ants are real - truly acrobats¹². You often think of big ants as kind of being sluggards and slow. Oh, no. Don't make that mistake with bullet ants 'cause you do that once, and you'll learn you were wrong.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: We've just had a brief tour of some of the ones that scared me. But I assume that in the population of Hymenoptera, which is my new favorite word, do you have a favorite insect?

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: I think my favorites are actually probably the harvester ants.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: Oh, I read about those, too.

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: And you could say that's kind of a sentimental¹³ favorite. They have the most toxic¹⁴ known insect venom¹⁵. It's really potent¹⁶, something like 40 times stronger than the Western diamondback rattlesnake. The good news is, of course, they have very little of it. They have this extremely long-lasting pain.

They're the only insect sting venom that causes the hair on your arm where you've been stung to stand up kind of like the hair on the back of a dog's neck when it's frightened. And it causes sweating. These are all kind of neurological things which are unique to it. It's got very complex biochemistry that still, even after 35 years, we have lots of mysteries left to discover with them.

LINDA WERTHEIMER: Justin Schmidt's book is called "The Sting Of The Wild." Thank you very much for talking to us.

JUSTIN SCHMIDT: Thank you for having me.

1 sobriquet   

n.绰号

参考例句：

• In Paris he was rewarded with the sobriquet of an "ultra-liberal".在巴黎，他被冠以“超自由主义者”的绰号。
• Andrew Jackson was known by the sobriquet "Old Hickory." 安德鲁•杰克生以其绰号“老山胡桃”而知名。

2 bugs   

adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误

参考例句：

• All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不断改进。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 wasps   

黄蜂( wasp的名词复数 )； 胡蜂； 易动怒的人； 刻毒的人

参考例句：

• There's a wasps' nest in that old tree. 那棵老树上有一个黄蜂巢。
• We live in dread not only of unpleasant insects like spiders or wasps, but of quite harmless ones like moths. 我们不仅生活在对象蜘蛛或黄蜂这样的小虫的惧怕中，而且生活在对诸如飞蛾这样无害昆虫的惧怕中

4 flirty   

adj.爱调戏的，轻浮的

参考例句：

• Add a flirty blouse and cardigan for a super chic weekend look. 再穿一件风情万种的衬衫，搭配开襟羊毛衫，就是超级有型的周末装了。 来自互联网

5 dual   

adj.双的；二重的，二元的

参考例句：

• The people's Republic of China does not recognize dual nationality for any Chinese national.中华人民共和国不承认中国公民具有双重国籍。
• He has dual role as composer and conductor.他兼作曲家及指挥的双重身分。

6 buddies   

n.密友( buddy的名词复数 )；同伴；弟兄；（用于称呼男子，常带怒气）家伙v.（如密友、战友、伙伴、弟兄般）交往( buddy的第三人称单数 )；做朋友；亲近（…）；伴护艾滋病人

参考例句：

• We became great buddies. 我们成了非常好的朋友。 来自辞典例句
• The two of them have become great buddies. 他们俩成了要好的朋友。 来自辞典例句

7 Mandarin   

n.中国官话，国语，满清官吏；adj.华丽辞藻的

参考例句：

• Just over one billion people speak Mandarin as their native tongue.大约有十亿以上的人口以华语为母语。
• Mandarin will be the new official language of the European Union.普通话会变成欧盟新的官方语言。

8 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

9 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

10 dinosaur   

n.恐龙

参考例句：

• Are you trying to tell me that David was attacked by a dinosaur?你是想要告诉我大卫被一支恐龙所攻击？
• He stared at the faithful miniature of the dinosaur.他凝视著精确的恐龙缩小模型。

11 primitive   

adj.原始的；简单的；n.原(始)人，原始事物

参考例句：

• It is a primitive instinct to flee a place of danger.逃离危险的地方是一种原始本能。
• His book describes the march of the civilization of a primitive society.他的著作描述了一个原始社会的开化过程。

12 acrobats   

n.杂技演员( acrobat的名词复数 )；立场观点善变的人，主张、政见等变化无常的人

参考例句：

• I was always fascinated by the acrobats at the circus. 我总是着迷于马戏团里的杂技演员。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The acrobats' performance drew forth applause from the audience. 杂技演员的表演博得了观众的掌声。 来自《简明英汉词典》

13 sentimental   

adj.多愁善感的，感伤的

参考例句：

• She's a sentimental woman who believes marriage comes by destiny.她是多愁善感的人，她相信姻缘命中注定。
• We were deeply touched by the sentimental movie.我们深深被那感伤的电影所感动。

14 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

15 venom   

n.毒液，恶毒，痛恨

参考例句：

• The snake injects the venom immediately after biting its prey.毒蛇咬住猎物之后马上注入毒液。
• In fact,some components of the venom may benefit human health.事实上，毒液的某些成分可能有益于人类健康。

16 potent   

adj.强有力的，有权势的；有效力的

参考例句：

• The medicine had a potent effect on your disease.这药物对你的病疗效很大。
• We must account of his potent influence.我们必须考虑他的强有力的影响。