*bloodhound n.(a large dog that has a very good ability to smell things) 大猎犬;大警犬
Why some whales are able to smell in stereo
ANY SCHOOLCHILD knows that a whale breathes through its blowhole. Fewer know that a blowhole is an adapted nostril,tweaked by evolution into a form more useful for a mammal that spends its life at sea. And only a dedicated cetologist would know that while toothed whales such as sperm whales and orcas, have one hole, baleen whales, such as humpback and Rice whales, have two.
*tweak v.(to change something slightly, especially in order to make it more correct, effective, or suitable)稍稍改进;也有扭,拧的意思(感觉拟声了?)
*cetologist n.(whalelore)鲸类学家
人人都知道鲸是通过其顶部的呼吸孔进行呼吸的,较少人知道这个呼吸孔是生活在海洋环境下的哺乳动物不断演化形成的“鼻孔”,但只有专注于鲸类研究的学家才知道,有齿鲸只有一个呼吸孔,比如抹香鲸、虎鲸,而像座头鲸和莱斯鲸一类的须鲸则有两个呼吸孔。
Even among the baleen whales, the placing of those nostrils differs. In some species they are close together. In others, they are much further apart. In a paper published inBiology Letters Conor Ryan, a marine biologist at at the Scottish Association for Marine Science, suggests why that might be. Having two nostrils, he argues, helps whales smell in stereo.
即便是在须鲸中,呼吸孔的位置也有所不同。有些种类的呼吸孔挨得很近,而有些的则相距较远。来自苏格兰海洋科学学会的海洋生物学家CR发表在《生物学通讯》中的一篇研究论文对两个气孔的存在原因提出了猜想。他认为,拥有两个呼吸孔能够帮助鲸获得立体的嗅觉。(不知道该咋形容 QAQ)
Many types of baleen whales eat tinycrustaceans known as zooplankton, which they catch by filtering them from seawater using the sheets of fibrous baleen that have replaced teeth in their mouths. But to eat something you first have to find it. Toothed whales do not hunt by scent. In fact, the olfactory bulb-the part of the brain that processes smell-is absent in such creatures. But baleen whales still have olfactory bulbs, which suggests smell remains important. And scent can indeed give zooplankton away. Zooplankton like to eat other tiny critters called phytoplankton. When these are under attack, they release a pungent gas called dimethyl sulphide, which scientists know is capable of attracting hungry seabirds.
*crustacean n.甲壳类动物(any of various types of animal that live in water and have a hard outer shell)
*pungent adj.刺激性的;刺鼻的;尖刻的
许多种类的须鲸以浮游动物为食,它们利用口腔中代替了牙齿的鲸须过滤海水并进食。但要想捕食,首先需要获得这些浮游动物所在的位置。齿鲸不通过气味来捕食,它们没有嗅球——大脑中处理气味的部分。但须鲸依旧保留了嗅球这一部分,可见嗅觉对其仍十分重要。事实上浮游动物的行踪也确实能够通过气味来追寻。浮游动物喜食浮游植物,而当浮游植物受到攻击时,它们会释放一种名为二甲基硫化物的刺激性气体——已知这类气体能够吸引捕食中的海鸟。
Most animals have stereoscopic senses. Having two eyes, for instance, allows an animal to compare the images from each in order to perceive depth. Having two ear lets them locate the direction from which a sound is coming. Dr Ryan theorised that paired blowholes might bring baleen whales the same sorts of benefits.
大多数动物都拥有立体的感观,例如,拥有两只眼睛则能够对每只眼睛所获得的图像进行比较,从而感知深度;拥有两只耳朵则能够确定声音传来的方向。CR博士提出猜想,成对的呼吸孔也为须鲸提供类似的感官能力。
The farther apart the sensory organs are, the more information can be extracted by the animal that bears them. The researchers useddrones to photograph the nostrils of 143 whales belonging to 14 different species. Sure enough, baleen whales that often eat zooplankton, such as the North Atlantic right whale, have nostrils that are farther apart than do those, such as humpback whales, that eat zooplankton occasionally. Besides allowing them to breathe, it seems that some whales use their blowholes to determine in which direction dinner lies.
感知器官之间的间距越大,动物能够提取的信息也就越多。研究人员使用无人机拍摄了隶属于14种不同物种的143只鲸鱼呼吸孔的分布位置,发现那些经常以浮游动物为食的须鲸,(比如北大西洋露脊鲸)它们呼吸孔的间距要比那些偶尔进食浮游动物的鲸鱼(比如座头鲸)要大。如此看来,呼吸孔除了帮助鲸呼吸外,还为部分鲸提供了嗅觉能力。
鲸鱼们:sperm whale抹香鲸(孩子咋取这名儿呢)
humpback whale座头鲸(Every humpback has a different pattern of spots, just as human fingerprints are all different.【例句看到的】)
题外话..上学的时候老师说 通过图片可以加深对新单词的印象(是好方法 就是耗时) 呃... 用bing搜的bloodhounds 0.0 这下也记住了
发表评论