蚂蚁依靠天体线索倒行--中国数字科技馆
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蚂蚁依靠天体线索倒行

蚂蚁依靠天体线索倒行(科学60S) 0:00/0:00
最新发布时间: 2017-07-31
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The six-legged savants appear to use celestial cues and three forms of memory, as they blaze a trail back to the nest. Karen Hopkin reports.

蚂蚁利用天体线索和三种形式的记忆找到返巢之路。卡伦·霍普金报道。

 

撰文/播音:卡伦·霍普金(Karen Hopkin)

翻译:郭鑫鹏

审校:丁可含

 

 

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. [Sebastian Schwarz et al, How Ants Use Vision When Homing Backward.]

下一次你需要辨别方向的时候,你可以向蚂蚁询问。因为这些聪明的小动物能找到回家的路,它们是导航专家……无论它们是向前走、向后走,或侧着走。这是根据期刊《当代生物学》上的一项研究。

 

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?

蚂蚁通常会走很长的路——对它们来说——它们需要寻找食物并搬回巢穴。即使在它们倒着拖拽大块食物移动,它们的内置GPS也运行良好。但是这些倒行的虫子如何知道它们该去哪里?

 

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.

为了研究这个问题,研究者们去西班牙研究一些沙漠蚂蚁。他们发现了一个活跃巢穴并用一些障碍物将其包围,迫使觅食的蚂蚁们需要走一个特定的路线回家。当蚂蚁熟悉了这个迷宫,研究者们就铲起它们……给它们一个饼干屑……然后把它们放回一个不同的位置……需要转90度才能回到巢穴。

 

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 and recognized the route.

研究者们看到,那些运送一个小巧易搬运碎屑的蚂蚁有自信地向前冲然后回到巢穴中。似乎是因为它们知道自己该去哪儿而认出了路线。

 

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 those that stuck with going in reverse would miss the turnoff to the nest.

但是它们的一些同伴拿到一些很大的饼干屑,只有紧随其后拉着它们的奖品。这些蚂蚁朝着正确的方向前进。但那些反向走的蚂蚁可能会错过回家的岔道。

 

Some of the rearward ants, however, stopped to get their bearings. They would drop the cookie and turn around to take a look at the landscape. This quick peek allowed the six-legged savants to reset their inner maps. So that after turning back around to grab their cookies they headed in the right direction, even going back-end first.

然而,一些在后面的蚂蚁会扔下重物。它们会放下饼干,到处走走,观察一下地形。这样快速看一眼帮助这些蚂蚁重新规划路径。因此当它们返回拿上饼干,它们朝向正确的方向,甚至走到其他蚂蚁前面。

 

The ants-in-reverse appear to use celestial cues…like the position of the sun…to keep them on the straight and narrow. When the researchers used a mirror to make it look like the sun was on the other side of the sky, the beleaguered backward ants would turn tail for the opposite direction.

这些倒着行走的蚂蚁似乎使用天体线索……比如太阳的位置……帮助它们走直线。当研究者们使用镜子让太阳看起来在天空的另一端时,这些被困扰的倒行蚂蚁可能朝相反方向走。

 

So ants integrate a lot of information…about local landmarks, the position of the sun, and where their bodies are situated in space…to successfully bring home the bacon… all while going backwards.

所以蚂蚁整合了大量信息……有关地形,太阳的位置,身体在空间的位置……然后成功把培根带回家……尽管是倒着走。

 

Lead author Antoine Wystrach, a CNRS researcher at the University of Toulouse 3, adds:

图卢兹大学CNRS研究者及主作者安托万·怀斯特拉补充道:

 

“This behaviors is interesting in itself, as it implies a synergy between at least three types of memory: the long-term memories of the route sceneries, the memory of the new direction to follow, and the memory of the cookie left behind.”

“这些行为本身很有趣,它需要至少三种不同记忆的协同配合:路线场景的长期记忆,新方向的记忆,身后饼干的记忆。”

 

-Karen Hopkin

 


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