音頻科普:癡情的大熊貓會發(fā)出特定叫聲
?Listening to the sounds panda pairs make when they're introduced could lead to better breeding success.傾聽大熊貓的叫聲能讓大熊貓配種的成功率更高。
? 撰文\播音:克里斯托弗·因塔利亞塔(Christopher Intagliata) 翻譯:陳美娟 校對:張藝簫 If you're?a giant panda, this sound 假如你是大熊貓,這個聲音<大熊貓叫聲>是浪漫的意思。 "I wouldn't call it a romantic serenade?" Megan Owen, a conservation biologist at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research. "There's nothing soft or demure about it."? “我不覺得這是浪漫的小夜曲<笑>。”來自圣地亞哥動物園研究保護組織的保護生物學家梅甘·歐文(Megan Owen)說:“這聲音并不溫柔端莊。” And yet: that sound, called a bleat, "that's B-L-E-A-T, just like a goat" signals that?a panda couple?has hit it off, and copulation is nigh.? 這聲音叫“bleat”,聽起來像山羊的叫聲。聽到這種聲音就說明有大熊貓夫婦在附近交配。 Owen and her colleagues analyzed more than 2,500 panda sounds recorded during breeding introductions, and analyzed the audio’s acoustic qualities. Their study, in the journal?Royal Society Open Science, is a sort of how-to guide for panda breeders, cataloguing the various vocal characteristics of a blind date: an uninterested roar 歐文與她的同事分析了超過2500例大熊貓在配種時的叫聲,并分析音頻的質量。他們發(fā)表在《皇家學會公開科學》雜志的研究成果,是將大熊貓交配時發(fā)出的各種聲音特征進行分類,為大熊貓飼養(yǎng)員提供了一份操作指南:如沒性趣的吼聲<吼聲>或咆哮<咆哮聲>,更加不確信的叫聲<叫聲>,或者性志高昂的吼叫<吼叫>。 [Benjamin D. Charlton et al.,?Vocal behaviour predicts mating success in giant pandas] Decoding the sounds could be important not just for boosting panda numbers, Owen says, but for avoiding very bad dates. "These are bears and they have sharp teeth and claws and they can do a lot of damage to one another if they don't want to be around each other." 歐文說,解讀這些聲音不僅僅對增加大熊貓數(shù)目有重要意義,還會避免配種的不順利。“它們屬于熊類,有尖牙利爪,如果它們彼此不想被安排的話會搞很多破壞。” And these fine-tuned communication skills also make the case that the social lives of pandas are anything but black and white. 這些精心調整過的配對技巧讓熊貓的社交生活不再是只有黑白兩種顏色。