科学美国人60秒:Humans and Birds Cooperate to Share Beehive Bounty

This is a story about the birds and the bees. When the Yao people of Mozambique want to find beehives full of honey they make this noise [brrrr-hm]. That sound attracts the attention of what are appropriately called honey guide birds.
这是关于鸟和蜜蜂的故事。当莫桑比克的瑶族人民想要找到装满蜂蜜的蜂巢时，他们就会发出这样的声音。这种声音就会吸引可以被称作蜂蜜指引的鸟类。

“If you ask Yao honey-hunters why they go brrrr-hm when they’re looking for a honeyguide, they’ll tell you, well, it’s the best way to attract a honeyguide and to maintain its attention while you’re following it to a bees’ nest.”
如果你询问瑶族寻蜜人，为什么在寻找蜂蜜指导鸟类时，会发生那样的声音。他们会告诉你，这是吸引这种鸟类最好的方法 ，追寻这种鸟，你就会找到蜂巢。

Claire Spottiswoode, of the University of Cambridge in England and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
克莱尔·斯波蒂斯伍德 来自于英国剑桥大学和南非开普敦大学。

The Yao have long known that they could attract honeyguides vocally, as part of a rare example of a mutualistic relationship between people and wild animals. The humans get honey and the birds then get what they want—the previously unattainable wax of the beehive, which they consider a delicacy. Spottiswoode’s study provides evidence that the humans are actually communicating with the birds.
作为一个罕见的例子，瑶族人和野生动物之间这种互惠的关系，长久以来，瑶族人们就知道利用声音来吸引这种鸟类。人类获得蜂蜜，而鸟类也获得需要所需之物——之前无法获得的蜂窝中的腊，这种鸟类将其视为珍宝。斯波蒂斯伍德 的研究为人类实际上可以与鸟类交流提供了证据。

“We wanted to specifically test whether honeyguides responded to the exact information content of the brrrr-hm call, which signals, if you wish, ‘I’m looking for bees’ nests,’ so we wanted to distinguish that from the alternative that the call simply alerts honeyguides to the presence of humans.”
明确地说，我们想要测试这种鸟类使否会回应人类发生声响中的信息，这种信息所传达的信号是“我在寻找蜜蜂的巢穴”，我们想要区分这种声音和另外一种声音——用以警示人类的存在。

Which the research team did—birds were much more likely to respond to brrrr-hm than to other sounds. The study is in the journal Science.
研究团队发现，与其他的声音相比，鸟类对第一种声音的回应较多。该研究结果发表在《科学》杂志上。

Honeyguides may help people, but to other birds they can be monsters.
响蜜对人类有益，但是对于其他鸟类来说，响蜜 则如猛兽一般。

“Honeyguides are the real Jekyll and Hyde of the bird world…like cowbirds or cuckoos, honeyguides are brood parasites—they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests and exploit the care of other species to raise their young. And their chicks hatch with these very sharp hooks at the tips of their beak, which they use to stab the host young to death as soon as they hatch.”
响蜜 是鸟类中的双重性格的鸟类，如燕八哥火杜鹃，响蜜是巢内寄生体——它们在其他鸟类的巢穴中产蛋，然后利用其他物种抚育自己的孩子。同时响蜜的幼崽喙部尖端呈钩状，一旦寄主的幼鸟孵化，这些响蜜的幼崽就会用尖尖的嘴将其啄死。

You can watch some of this horror-movie-worthy footage that Spottiswoode captured several years ago by googling the phrase “honeyguide murder.”
在数年前斯波蒂斯伍德捕捉了数个类似的恐怖镜头，你可以通过网络检索短语“响蜜谋杀”进行观看。

As Africa becomes more urbanized, fewer people are engaging the birds to help them find honey. And the relationship between honeyguides and honey-hunters may be fraying.
随着南非愈加城市化，越来越少的人依赖响蜜来寻找蜂蜜。因此，响蜜和猎蜜人之间的这种关系将会受到损害。

“A young honeyguide hatches in the nest of another species knowing how to be a honeyguide. Because it doesn’t have the opportunity to learn from its own parents. But then if that’s not reinforced by experience, it’s lost.”
在其他鸟巢中得以孵化的幼小的响蜜知道如何寻找蜂蜜。即使不能从父母那里习得这门本领。但是，若这种技能没有经验的强化，也会失传。

In the not-too-distant future then, honeyguides may still know where the beehives are—but they’ll be keeping that information to themselves.
在不远的将来，响蜜可能也知道哪里有蜂巢——但是，它们自己将会保守这个秘密。