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动物们的感官世界(下)

来源:可可英语 编辑:Daisy   可可英语APP下载 |  可可官方微信:ikekenet

Even in a completely dark room where the very large eyes of an owl might not be of much use, they can still hear and they hear really well.

即便在一个完全黑暗的房间里,连猫头鹰的大眼睛可能都看不到任何东西,但它们仍然可以听到声音,而且它们的听觉很好。

The dish of feathers around an owl's face that gives it that distinctive owl-y look acts as a radar dish funneling sound towards its ears.

猫头鹰脸上的羽毛让它们看起来很独特,而且能像雷达一样把声音传递到它们的耳朵里。

Those ears are incredibly sensitive, but they also have a unique trick that allows the owl to work out exactly where sound is coming from.

这些耳朵非常敏感,但它们也有一个独特的技巧,可以让猫头鹰准确地判断声音是从哪里来的。

Based on when sound arrives in my ears, where those first arrives at the left or the right, I can tell where a sound is coming from in the horizontal plane.

根据声音到达我耳朵的时间,是左边还是右边先听到声音,我可以分辨出声音在水平面上是从哪里传来的。

I can't do that trick in the vertical very well because my ears are level with each other so sound arrives at both of them from above or below at the same time.

但在垂直方向上,我无法很好地做到这一点,因为我的两只耳朵处于水平状态,所以无论是从上面还是下面,声音到达两只耳朵的时间都是一样的。

An owl solves this problem because its ears are offset.

猫头鹰就没有这个缺陷,因为它的耳朵是偏置的。

So they're asymmetrical.

它们是不对称的。

So one ear is slightly higher than the other.

它的一只耳朵略高于另一只耳朵。

And when sound arrives at that ear first, the owl knows where in the vertical plane it's target is.

当声音首先到达某只耳朵时,猫头鹰知道它的目标在垂直方向的什么位置。

And that's why an owl in the dark can land exactly on a mouse.

这就是为什么猫头鹰在黑暗中可以精准地抓到老鼠的原因。

It's why owls in the wild can bust through snow to pick up scurrying rodents that they couldn't even see.

这也是为什么野外的猫头鹰可以在雪地里抓到它们甚至看不到的匆忙奔逃的啮齿动物。

One of the primary uses of scent in the animal kingdom is for navigation, for finding your way around a landscape.

在动物王国中,味觉的主要用途之一是导航,用来辨别环境中的方向。

You know, my dog, Typo, absolutely can do this.

我的狗,Typo,绝对可以做到这一点。

He knows where we are by cross-referencing his memories of the smells of the neighborhood against what he's smelling at any given moment.

通过交叉对比它对附近气味的记忆以及它在某一刻所闻到的气味,它能知道我们在哪里。

But there are other animals that use scent for navigation in even more extraordinary ways.

但还有其他动物利用气味进行导航,其方式甚至更加不同寻常。

A lot of sea birds, the group known as tubenoses, use the odorscapes of the ocean to find food.

许多海鸟,也就是所谓的管鼻类,能利用海洋的气味来寻找食物。

The ocean looks featureless to us, right?

在我们看来,海洋无从辨认,对吧?

We can glide over it and just see this endless expanse of uniform blue, but it's not featureless to an albatross.

在海洋上空,我们看到的只是无穷无尽的一片蓝色,但对信天翁来说,可不是这样的。

Underwater features like mountains and valleys leads to concentrations of nutrients, which then concentrate food, plankton, and then krill, the kinds of things that a seabird might eat.

像山脉和山谷这样的水下特征会让营养物质在某些地方聚集,然后引来食物、浮游生物,然后是磷虾,磷虾就是海鸟的食物。

And so the ocean has this undulating odorscape: odors that reveal the concentration of possible food and then areas of no scent that reveal scarcity in the deep.

因此,海洋上有这种起伏的气味:有气味表明可能存在食物聚集,没有气味说明深海中食物匮乏。

Elephants can do this too.

大象也能做到这一点。

Elephants can navigate over long distances.

大象可以航行很远的距离。

Obviously, they have that trunk.

当然了,它们有长长的鼻子。

They have constantly scanning about with this extremely elongated nose.

它们不断地用这个极其细长的鼻子四处扫视。

You know, they'll react to the imminent arrival of rain.

如果马上要下雨,它们就会有所反应。

People have suggested that they can find buried sources of water by smelling it.

人们认为,大象可以闻到深埋的水源。

It's quite difficult to understand exactly how elephants smell because they are large, intelligent animals that are difficult to work with.

很难确切地弄明白大象是如何利用嗅觉的,因为它们是聪明的庞然大物,难以与之共事。

Part of this relies on us using our imaginations like watching their incredible behavior, looking at their trunk, and trying to just make educated guesses about what their olfactory world might be like.

在一定程度上,我们只能看着它们令人难以置信的行为,观察它们的鼻子,然后依靠自己的想象力,对它们的嗅觉世界做出合理猜测。

There's a wonderful quote by Marcel Proust that I think captures what's magical about the umwelt concept.

马塞尔·普鲁斯特有一句很棒的话,我认为这句话抓住了“客观世界”这个概念的神奇之处。

He said that the only true voyage would be not to visit strange lands, but to possess other eyes to see the hundreds of universes that each of them sees.

他说,唯一真正的旅程不是去访问陌生的土地,而是拥有其他眼睛,去看世间万物所看到的多彩世界。

That's how I think about the sensory worlds of other animals.

这就是我对其他动物感官世界的看法。

I think that when I get to empathize with the smell world of a dog or the touch world of a sea otter, I feel like I'm traveling, like I'm leaving the confines of my own body and my own lived experience and going on this fantastical voyage into the world of another creature.

我想,当我能感同身受地感受到狗的嗅觉世界或海獭的触觉世界时,我就像是在旅行,摆脱了我的肉体和生活经历的局限性,进入了另一种生物的世界,开启一场奇幻之旅。

重点单词   查看全部解释    
horizontal [.hɔri'zɔntl]

想一想再看

adj. 水平的,横的
n. 水平线,水平面

联想记忆
react [ri'ækt]

想一想再看

vt. 作出反应
vi. 起反应,起作用,反攻

联想记忆
intelligent [in'telidʒənt]

想一想再看

adj. 聪明的,智能的

 
concentrate ['kɔnsntreit]

想一想再看

v. 集中,专心,浓缩
n. 浓缩物

联想记忆
landscape ['lændskeip]

想一想再看

n. 风景,山水,风景画
v. 美化景观

 
uniform ['ju:nifɔ:m]

想一想再看

n. 制服
adj. 一致的,统一的

联想记忆
distinctive [di'stiŋktiv]

想一想再看

adj. 独特的

联想记忆
glide [glaid]

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n. 滑动,滑过,流水
v. 滑动,滑翔,溜走

 
scarcity ['skɛəsiti]

想一想再看

n. 缺乏,不足,缺少

联想记忆
extraordinary [iks'trɔ:dnri]

想一想再看

adj. 非凡的,特别的,特派的

联想记忆

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