Wrens Teach Eggs to Sing《科学美国人.doc

Wrens Teach Eggs to Sing 教蛋唱歌的鹪鹩 时间:2012-11-13 13:54 来源:环球科学（） Parent wrens sing food passwords to unhatched chicks to avoid having to feed impostors Baby fairy wrens wont get fed unless they sing the secret password they learned in the egg. Photo taken in the Northern Beaches of Sydney, Australia. 除非细尾鹩莺宝宝鸣叫出它们在蛋壳中学到的暗号，否则它们是得不到喂食的。 Image: Wikimedia Commons/Nevil Lazarus Mothers usually set about teaching their offspring the moment theyre born. But the females of one Australian bird cant wait that long. 妈妈们通常会在宝宝出生之后开始教导它们。但是澳大利亚某种鸟类妈妈可等不了那么久。 Superb fairy-wren (Malurus cyaneus) mothers sing to their unhatched eggs to teach the embryo inside a password — a single unique note — which the nestlings must later incorporate into their begging calls if they want to get fed. 华丽细尾鹩莺妈妈对着未孵化的蛋中的胚胎唱着一种密码——一种单调的、独特的音符——雏鸟们如果想要食物，必须在它们随即的求食声中夹杂着这种密码。 The trick allows fairy-wren parents to distinguish between their own offspring and those of the two cuckoo species that frequently invade their nests. The female birds also teach their mates the password. 通过这样的方法，细尾鹩莺夫妇们得以将它们的后代和其他两类经常侵入巢穴的杜鹃科鸟类区分开。雌鸟也会将密码教授给它们的伴侣。 Fairy-wrens were known to discriminate against cuckoo nestlings on the basis of their foreign begging calls, says Sonia Kleindorfer, an animal behaviorist at Flinders University in Adelaide, who led the work. But it wasnt known that wren nestlings learned the passwords before hatching. “我们已经知道细尾鹩莺是通过陌生的求食声来区分杜鹃科雏鸟，但我们不知道的是，鹪鹩宝宝是如何在孵化前就习得这些密码。”索妮亚·克雷恩多佛 “It has never been shown before that there is actually learning in the embryo stages,” says Kleindorfer. The finding, published today in Current Biology, has the potential to open up new lines of enquiry into prenatal learning in systems other than parasite-host relationships and in other animals — it could occur anywhere where its a benefit, she adds. 克雷恩多佛说：“之前的研究并未显示胚胎阶段有真正的习得过程。”该发现刊登在今天的《当代生物学》期刊上，有可能为探究除寄生虫宿主关系 Accidental discovery 偶然发现 The researchers stumbled across the embryonic learning quite by accident. They