【英语时差8,16】与鲨鱼游泳

 In the immortal¹ words of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, Part II,”My father always taught me: keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.” Perhaps no creature has taken this advice more literally² then the remora, also known as the sucker fish. As the official ocean survival manual clearly states: “Upon spotting a shark, flee, unless you also happen to be a shark.” Or a remora. When a shark approaches, not only does the remora not flee–it swims right up to the shark, finds a nice comfortable spot, and attaches itself with a suction cup located on the top of its head. Why, you may be wondering, would any fish want to be so close to a predator³? If remoras could talk, they would calmly explain something called commensalism–a relationship where one species benefits from proximity⁴ to the other without harming or helping⁵ the other species. In this case, remoras benefit from riding on sharks without doing the sharks any harm.

1 immortal   

adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的

参考例句：

• The wild cocoa tree is effectively immortal.野生可可树实际上是不会死的。
• The heroes of the people are immortal!人民英雄永垂不朽！

2 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

3 predator   

n.捕食其它动物的动物；捕食者

参考例句：

• The final part of this chapter was devoted to a brief summary of predator species.本章最后部分简要总结了食肉动物。
• Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard and a fearsome predator.科摩多龙是目前存在的最大蜥蜴，它是一种令人恐惧的捕食性动物。

4 proximity   

n.接近，邻近

参考例句：

• Marriages in proximity of blood are forbidden by the law.法律规定禁止近亲结婚。
• Their house is in close proximity to ours.他们的房子很接近我们的。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。