A Moth with a Potent Cocktail of Poison

飞蛾的绝命混合毒药

The wood tiger moth is the first species known in which fluids from various parts of the moth’s body each target a different type of predator.

木虎蛾能从身上不同部位分泌不同液体，每种液体针对不同的捕食者——这是目前已知的第一个此类物种。

撰文\播音：贾森·G·戈德曼（Jason G. Goldman）

翻译：陈美娟

审校：郭晓

Meet the wood tiger moth. Its bright yellow, red, or orange scales send a warning to potential predators.

让我们来认识一下木虎蛾。它们身上或亮黄色、或红或是橘色的翅鳞给潜在的捕食者发送了警告的信号。

"These wonderful conspicuous colors tend to be connected, or linked, to some sort of chemical defense. So when we see the reaction of the birds to them, then we got interested in studying in more detail the chemical defenses per se."                                     “这些漂亮又醒目的颜色与某种化学防御有关系或直接相连。所以当我们看到鸟类对这些飞蛾的反应之后，我们就对研究这种化学防御本身的更多细节产生了兴趣。”                                                                                           

Biologist Bibiana Rojas from Finland's University of Jyväskylä.    

来自芬兰于韦斯屈莱大学（University of Jyväskylä）的生物学家比比安娜·罗哈斯（Bibiana Rojas）如是说。

Animals that pair visual warnings with other defenses are called aposematic. If a hungry predator were to try chowing down on this moth, it would find a mouthful of nasty-tasting, possibly even toxic, bug parts.                                                      将视觉警告信号与其他防御方式结合起来的动物具有警戒色。当一个饥饿的捕食者准备将这种蛾子吃下去的时候，它会感到满嘴的恶心，甚至还可能有毒的昆虫部分器官。

Rojas and her team found that the wood tiger moth secretes nasty fluids from glands on its neck and from its abdomen. At first glance, this seems like a fairly routine sort of defensive strategy. After all, nature is full of redundant processes.                        罗哈斯与她的团队发现，这种木虎蛾腹部和颈部的腺体会分泌令敌恶心的液体。乍一看，这像是一种相当平常的防御手段。要知道，自然界里到处是这种千篇一律的防御方法。

But the researchers discovered that the wood tiger moth is the first species known in which the different fluids from the different parts of the moths’ body each target a different type of predator.          

但是研究者发现，木虎蛾能从身上不同部位分泌不同液体，而每种液体针对不同的捕食者——这是目前已知的第一个此类物种。

The fluids from the moth’s abdomen deter ants, but are completely useless against birds. Meanwhile, the neck fluids are unpalatable to birds, but don’t bother ants. In fact, the ants actually preferred this fluid to sugar water. The finding is in the Proceedings of the Royal Society: B. [Bibiana Rojas et al., How to fight multiple enemies: target specific chemical defenses in an aposematic moth.]        

从腹部分泌出来的液体能赶跑蚂蚁，但在鸟类面前完全没用。与此同时，从颈部分泌出来的液体使鸟类难以接受，却不会让蚂蚁感到不快。实际上，与糖水相比，蚂蚁更喜欢这类液体。这项发现由比比安娜等人发表在《皇家学会学报》（Proceedings of the Royal Society）的B刊上。

So we now have the first example of an animals having multiple, independent chemical defenses. But is it truly unique?               

我们现在发现了第一个拥有多种独立的化学防御的动物。但木虎蛾真的是独一无二的吗？

"We think that this just opens the possibility that there are more species that have this, we just need to get the evidence for that."   

“我们认为木虎蛾的发现只是开启了这种可能性，也就是说还有更多的动物也有这种能力，不过我们还需要找到证据来证明它。”

Which means looking beyond just…looking.                   

 这意味着展望未来……只有继续寻找了。

"We, as humans, are very visual. Everything that excites us comes mostly by our eyes. We want to highlight with this study that there is a whole world of chemical stimuli that we perhaps have been overlooking just because we can not detect and we can not perceive the way that other animals do."                                

 “作为人类，我们就是视觉动物。能让我们兴奋的一切大多都来自视觉。我们想通过这次研究强调，我们或许一直忽视了化学刺激的世界，仅仅因为我们未能察觉到，未能像其他动物一样感知到化学刺激。”

—Jason G. Goldman