60秒学美语： Male Black Widows Strive for Mate's Monogamy

学更多地道英语口语，关注公众微信【英语】微信号：yingyu9 ，如果想系统学习提高英语口语能力，报名吉米老师听力口语特训班，百度传课网chuanke.com 搜索：听力口语特训班，看到第一个即可报名，482个同学报名啦，100%好评哦！ Male Black Widows Strive for Mate's Monogamy 黑寡妇蜘蛛的人生目标 Island View Beach, in British Columbia, has all the makings of a perfect summer outing: great views, seclusion, sand dunes and driftwood. There's just one minor detail: That driftwood? It hosts two to three black widow spider webs per square meter. 不列颠哥伦比亚省的Island View Beach，拥有一个完美的夏日出游所必备的全部条件：壮丽的景观，隔绝世俗，沙丘和漂流木。只是这里有个小细节需要注意一下：那个漂流木？ 上面好像每平米就有两到三只黑寡妇蜘蛛耶。 "To some people a beach full of black widows sounds like a nightmare, but to me it's awesome and it's not scary at all." Catherine Scott studies spider behavior at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. And in case you're wondering: "I've never been bitten by a black widow and I'm not at all concerned about being bitten by a black widow." 对某些人来讲，充满了黑寡妇蜘蛛的海滩好像梦魇一般可怕，但是对我来说，简直棒极了并且，根本一点儿也不可怕哦，这是不列颠哥伦比亚省的Simon Fraser大学的Catherine Scott，她研究的就是蜘蛛行为学。以防你们好奇我不妨多说几句：我从来没被一只黑寡妇蜘蛛咬过，并且我也根本不担心会被一只黑寡妇蜘蛛咬到。 Scott's research brought her to Island View Beach, to study the mating habits of black widow spiders. The basics are this: "If you're a male black widow your goal in life is to find a female and mate with her and father as many of her offspring as possible." Scott的研究使她来到了Island View Beach海滩，来研究黑寡妇蜘蛛的交配习性。相关的基本常识就是：如果你是一只黑寡妇蜘蛛的话，你的人生目标就是为了找到一个她并且和她交配然后尽可能多的抚养你们的后代。 Achieving that goal includes some architectural alterations by the males during their several hours of courtship—they snip the female's web to pieces, and then bundle the tattered web in their own silk. Scott and her colleagues found that webs treated this way don't attract other prowling males the same way an intact web does. Meaning "it's not so much the best male, but the first male to arrive that will win, if he's able to quickly find a female and reduce her web." 为了获得这个目标，在它们历时几小时的求偶活动期间，雄性需要作一些建筑学上的措施——它们需要把雌性编织的网剪成碎片，然后重新把破碎的网用它们自己吐的丝再编织起来。Scott 和她的同事们发现，这种重新处理过后的网不会像没有被修补过的网那样吸引潜伏着的雄性。也就是说，不是雄性本身好坏起到决定配对能否成功的作用，而是本着先到先得的原则进行的， 如果一个雄性黑寡妇蜘蛛能够迅速找到一个雌性，然后剪断她的网，这亲事儿就算是订下了。 And the reason this tactic works? The researchers say females encode pheromones, like chemical "personal ads," in their webs, advertising their age, hunger level and mating status. And the first-arriving male's craftsmanship may obscure that information, causing other suitors to pass her by. The study is in the journal Animal Behaviour. [Catherine Scott et al, Web reduction by courting male black widows renders pheromone-emitting females' webs less attractive to rival males] 那么这种战术起作用的原因是神马呢？研究人员们表示，雌性个体本身有编码费罗蒙这种荷尔蒙，就像是网络化的一种化学性质的个体广告牌，上面包括的信息有年龄，饥饿程度以及交配情况。快速到达的雄性个体的技术工作也许会把信息模糊掉，导致其它求偶的个体不会在此逗留很久。该研究已发表在《动物学行为》杂志上。 Wondering about the postcoital fate of the males? Scott says it's a common misconception that black widows always feast on their mates. Males can—and do—mate with multiple females. And besides, black widow females advertise right on their webs how hungry they are. So let no male claim that his desire caused him to lose his head. 很好奇交配之后这些雄性的命运是吗？Scott说，有个常见的误解就是说黑寡妇蜘蛛经常把雄性吃掉。雄性能够，也确实 会和很多雌性交配。此外，黑寡妇雌性蜘蛛会在她们的网上散步一些个人信息，比如她们的饥饿程度如何。所以，没有雄性会想要为了交配而掉脑袋。 —Christopher Intagliata