VOA慢速英语听力：蚂蚁很厉害.docxVIP

VOA 慢速英语听力：蚂蚁很厉害 Ants Use Celestial Cues to Travel in Reverse 很 害 Next time you need directions, maybe ask an ant. Because these clever little critters are such masters of navigation that some can find their way home ? whether they ’re walking forward, backward, or sideways. That ’s according to a study in the journal Current Biology. 下次你需要辨 方向， 也 可以 小 。 因 些 明的小 西真是擅 航， 无 是向前向后或者走小路， 有些 能找到 回家的路呢。 研究 果 表在《当代生物学》 志。 Ants often travel long distances — well, for them — when they ’ re searching for food to bring back to their nests. And their built-in GPS appears to function just fine even when they wind up having to travel in reverse because they ’re dragging a huge morsel. But how do these backward bugs know where they ’ re going? 1 通常会出行很 的距离——好吧， 它 来 算是很 了 ——当它 外出 找食物回家的 候。 它 身体里内置的定位系 即使在它 因 拉着一个巨大的食物碎屑而不得不 束旅行掉 回 家的 候也能正常 功能。 但是 些向后掉 的小 西是如何知道 它 要去的方向呢 ? To find out, researchers went to Spain to mess with some desert ants. They found an active nest and surrounded it with barriers that forced the foraging ants to follow a particular path back home. Once the ants were familiar with the maze, the researchers would scoop them up ?hand them a cookie crumb ?and then put them back in a different location ?one that required taking a 90 degree turn to get to the nest. 了找 答案，研究人 去西班牙 了一下某些沙漠地 的 。 果他 ， 一个有活力的巢穴以及 着巢穴的一些屏障 会迫使 些 食的 循着一条特殊的路径返家。一旦 些 熟 悉了 种迷 式的路 ， 研究人 就会把它 拿起来，拿 它 一 干碎屑 ，然后把它 再放到另一个不同的位置， 里需要 90 度角的方向才能返回巢穴。 What the researchers saw was that the ants that were carting a small, easy-to-carry crumb would dash forward with confidence and were able to hook a right and head on home. Presumably because they could see where they were going 2 and recognized the route. 研究人员们发现， 这些蚂蚁会抓着小块的容易携带的食物碎屑向 前猛冲，并能找到正确的汇价方向。 或许因为它们能识别它们要去的 地方的位置和路线。 But some of their nest-mates were given a cookie crumb so large that they had to travel aft-first, pulling their prize behind them. These ants would set off in the correct general direction. But thos