啄木鸟为争夺领土开战

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Annie Sneed.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是安妮·斯尼德。

What you’re hearing is war—among woodpeckers, a species called acorn woodpeckers. The birds fight long, bloody battles over access to trees, where these woodpeckers nest and store their food: you guessed it, acorns.

你听到的是啄木鸟间的战争，一种叫做橡实啄木鸟的物种。这些啄木鸟为争夺树上的位置而进行了漫长而血腥的战斗，啄木鸟在树上筑巢和储存食物:你猜对了，是橡子。

“They build these giant acorn granaries, and these are basically acorn-storage structures, where they store thousands of acorns every fall.”

“他们建造了这些巨大的橡子谷仓，这些基本上是橡子储存结构，每年秋天他们在那里储存数千个橡子。”

Sahas Barve, with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.

萨哈斯·巴夫是史密森尼国家自然历史博物馆的研究员。

“In bark and in dead parts of trees, they make individual holes in which they store one acorn at a time. And some granaries may have tens of thousands of holes.”

它们在树皮和枯枝上挖洞，每次只在一个洞里储存一颗橡子。有些粮仓可能有成千上万个洞。”

When woodpeckers that hold high-quality territory die, others come to claim it for themselves. That’s when the fighting begins.

当拥有优质领地的啄木鸟死去时，其他啄木鸟就会占领它。那就是战斗开始的时候。

“It’s a lot of energy that they put in, and that sort of tells you how valuable the granaries are for them. They put in a lot of effort in the short term for this big long-term prize.”

“他们投入了大量的精力，这多少说明了粮仓对他们来说有多高的价值。他们在短期内付出了很多努力，以获得这个巨大的长期奖励。”

Barve and his colleagues tracked acorn woodpeckers during these power struggles. The researchers observed up to 12 groups of birds sparring for a single territory, typically with three or four birds per clan. Individual birds may fight more than 10 hours a day for several days.

巴维和他的同事们追踪处于权力斗争中的橡实啄木鸟。研究人员观察到多达12组鸟类为争夺一块领地而争斗，通常每个部落有3或4只鸟。在持续几天内，每只鸟每天可能战斗超过10个小时。

“We didn’t know that bird conflicts could last that long; it’s really amazing. You can imagine the oak savanna of California—big oak trees.

“我们不知道鸟类争斗会持续那么长时间; 真的很神奇。你可以想象加利福尼亚的橡树稀树草原——大橡树。

And you can just hear birds calling, because they give these very distinct ‘wacka wacka’ calls when they are fighting each other.

你可以听到鸟儿的叫声，因为当它们互相争斗的时候，会发出非常独特的“哇卡 哇卡”叫声。

You can hear it from far away, because there are so many birds calling, and when you go closer, you see birds flying around pretty chaotically.

你从很远的地方就能听到，因为有很多鸟在叫，当你走近时，你会看到鸟儿在乱飞。

There are birds posturing, so most coalitions will group together, every now and then, and spread out their wings on a very prominent branch of the tree and show, basically, who they are and that they are together.

鸟类会摆出姿态，所以大多数联盟会时不时地聚集在一起，在非常突出的树枝上展开翅膀，基本上是为了表明它们是谁以及它们在一起。

But these conflicts are often very violent, so you will see birds with big injuries. So you’ll see bloodied feathers.

但是这些冲突通常非常激烈，所以你会看到鸟类受到严重的伤害。所以你会看到血迹斑斑的羽毛。

You can see eyes gouged out, birds with some injuries that are obviously fatal. We’ve seen birds with broken wings.

你可以看到它们的眼睛被挖出来，一些受伤的鸟显然有性命之忧。我们曾经见过折断翅膀的鸟。

And also birds fall to the ground fighting each other. Like I often say, these birds have spears for mouths, so they can do a lot of damage to each other.”

也有鸟落在地上互相争斗。就像我经常说的，这些鸟的嘴都是长矛，所以它们会对彼此造成很大的伤害。”

Other woodpeckers flew in from up to three kilometers away just to watch the fighting—and to glean social information.

其他的啄木鸟从三公里外飞来，只是为了观看战斗，并收集社会信息。

The study is in the journal Current Biology.

这项研究发表在《当代生物学》杂志上。

The scientists say these battles reveal a lot about animal social behavior.

科学家们说，这些争斗揭示了很多动物的社会行为。

“We often think of birds as not very intelligent animals, but we are discovering, very quickly, that we are not the only busybody, nosy, supercurious social animal out there.

“我们经常认为鸟类不是非常聪明的动物，但我们很快发现，我们并不是唯一爱管闲事、好管闲事、超级好奇的群居动物。

And birds are doing that all the time. Social complexity is something that’s evolved multiple times in the animal kingdom, and we are just one of them.”

鸟类一直都在这样做。社会复杂性在动物王国里已经进化了很多次，而我们只是其中之一。”

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Annie Sneed.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是安妮·斯尼德。