墨尔本PTE素材库——Humans and Birds Cooperate to Share Beehive Bounty

墨尔本PTE素材库——Humans and Birds Cooperate to Share Beehive Bounty

中文批注

在非洲莫桑比克，当地人民可以通过和蜜鴷鸟合作来找到蜂巢。当地人可以通过一种特定的叫声来呼唤蜜鴷鸟，而蜜鴷鸟则会带领人前往蜂巢。接下来人能够打开蜂巢，得到蜂蜜，而蜜鴷鸟也能从中获取它们自己无法获得的美食——蜂蜡。这个有趣的现象也引起了科学家的注意，他们认为这是一个人与野生动物互利共生的绝佳研究例子。

这篇文章生词适度，难度适中。可以用来练习Dictation和Re-tell Lecture。同时Transcript也可以作为阅读材料来使用。澳大利亚语言学院整理的PTE素材库，旨在用最贴近PTE Official Question Criteria的材料，给大家提供一系列不同话题的PTE素材！让大家可以在平时练习听力、阅读、口语、写作，不至于陷入“题荒”的境地。

【Key Vocabulary】

honeyguide n. 蜜鴷鸟

beehive n. 蜂巢

vocally adv. 用声音，口头的

mutualistic adj. 共生的，互利共生的

unattainable adj. 无法获得的，难以达到的

delicacy n. 美味，佳肴

distinguish v. 区别，区分

brood n. 一窝

parasite n. 寄生虫

hatch v. 孵化

fray v. 磨损

Full Transcript

The Yao people of Mozambique vocally signal honeyguide birds to show them the location of hives, which the people harvest and share with the birds.   

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 honeyguide birds.

“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.”

Claire Spottiswoode, of the University of Cambridge in England and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.

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.

“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.”

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. [Claire N. Spottiswoode, Keith S. Begg and Colleen M. Begg, Reciprocal signaling in honeyguide-human mutualism]

Honeyguides may help people, but to other birds they can be monsters.

“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.”

You can watch some of this horror-movie-worthy footage that Spottiswoode captured several years ago by googling the phrase “honeyguide murder.”

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.

“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.”

In the not-too-distant future then, honeyguides may still know where the beehives are—but they’ll be keeping that information to themselves.

—Sara Chodosh

(Source: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/humans-and-birds-cooperate-to-share-beehive-bounty/)