鳥(niǎo)類和人類相比是如何看待這個(gè)世界的

這就是鳥(niǎo)類和人類相比是如何看待這個(gè)世界的，這很神奇

For many years, people were in the dark about how other animals see. Thankfully, recent scientific research has revealed an amazing world of vision diversity across the animal kingdom. For example, a dragonfly’s brain works so fast that it sees movements in slow motion, snakes pick up infrared heat signals from warm objects, thus detecting their prey, whereas horses and zebras have eyes pointed sideways, enabling them to have peripheral vision and escape danger when necessary. In addition to this, insects use compound eyes that are made of thousands of tiny lenses that look like a honeycomb pattern. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that animals are diverse in their vision, but one species in the animal kingdom stands out the most – birds.

多年來(lái)，人們對(duì)其他動(dòng)物如何看東西一無(wú)所知。值得慶幸的是，最近的科學(xué)研究已經(jīng)揭示了動(dòng)物王國(guó)中一個(gè)驚人的視覺(jué)多樣性的世界。例如，蜻蜓的大腦工作速度非?？?，它可以看到慢動(dòng)作;蛇從溫暖的物體上接收紅外熱信號(hào)，從而探測(cè)到它們的獵物;而馬和斑馬的眼睛是斜向一邊的，這使它們能夠有外圍視覺(jué)，在必要的時(shí)候躲避危險(xiǎn)。除此之外，昆蟲(chóng)的復(fù)眼是由成千上萬(wàn)個(gè)看起來(lái)像蜂窩狀的小透鏡組成的。因此，動(dòng)物在視覺(jué)上的多樣性不足為奇，但動(dòng)物王國(guó)里最突出的一個(gè)物種——鳥(niǎo)類脫穎而出。

Image credits: Ian Glover

Birds are bizarre creatures when you really look into them. For example, did you know that penguins can only recognize salty and sour tastes? Or that Palila birds, native to Hawaii, feed on the seeds of the māmane plant, which contain a level of toxins that would easily kill any other small animal? Or that pigeons are thought to be best at color detection than any animal on Earth and are often used in search and rescue missions? Various avians have different superpowers and different ways of working their sensations, but one thing is true for most birds – their superior (in comparison to humans) vision.

當(dāng)你仔細(xì)觀察鳥(niǎo)類時(shí)，你會(huì)發(fā)現(xiàn)它們是一種奇怪的生物。例如，你知道企鵝只能分辨咸味和酸味嗎?或者Palila鳥(niǎo),產(chǎn)于夏威夷,以māmane植物的種子為食,含有一定的毒素,可以輕易地殺死其他的小動(dòng)物嗎?或者鴿子被認(rèn)為是地球上最擅長(zhǎng)識(shí)別顏色的動(dòng)物，經(jīng)常被用于搜索和救援任務(wù)?不同的鳥(niǎo)類有不同的超能力和不同的感知方式，但有一件事對(duì)大多數(shù)鳥(niǎo)類來(lái)說(shuō)是真實(shí)的——它們的視覺(jué)(與人類相比)更優(yōu)越。

Image credits: Klaus Schmitt

The graphic compares the human spectral range to the bird’s. As birds are tetrachromats, they see four colors: UV, blue, green and red, whereas we are trichromats and can only see three colors: blue, green, red. Bear in mind, that the magenta UV “color” shown here has been chosen to make it visible for us humans, it is a “false color”, as per definition UV light has no color.

這張圖表比較了人類和鳥(niǎo)類的光譜范圍。因?yàn)轼B(niǎo)類是四色視者，它們能看到四種顏色:紫外線、藍(lán)色、綠色和紅色，而我們是三色視者，只能看到三種顏色:藍(lán)色、綠色、紅色。請(qǐng)記住，這里所顯示的紫紅色紫外線“顏色”是為了使它對(duì)我們?nèi)祟惪梢?jiàn)，它是一種“假顏色”，因?yàn)樽贤饩€的定義是沒(méi)有顏色的。

Image credits: Cynthia Tedore

Joe Smith, an ornithologist, explains that birds have the amazing ability to see a whole spectrum of colors that are invisible to us, people. Back in 2007, scientists, with the help of a spectrophotometer, analyzed the colors of 166 North American songbird species which did not have an apparent physical difference between the sexes. From a human’s perspective, in 92 percent of species, both males and females look identical. However, the study showed that these birds have colors that are simply undetectable by our eye that they differentiate their genders by.

鳥(niǎo)類學(xué)家喬·史密斯(Joe Smith)解釋說(shuō)，鳥(niǎo)類有一種驚人的能力，能看到人類看不見(jiàn)的整個(gè)光譜的顏色。2007年，科學(xué)家在分光光度計(jì)的幫助下，分析了166種北美鳴鳥(niǎo)的顏色，這些鳴鳥(niǎo)在性別上沒(méi)有明顯的生理差異。從人類的角度來(lái)看，在92%的物種中，雄性和雌性看起來(lái)都是一樣的。然而，研究表明，這些鳥(niǎo)的顏色是我們?nèi)庋鄹緹o(wú)法察覺(jué)的，它們通過(guò)顏色來(lái)區(qū)分性別。

Image credits: Joel Sartore

So for example, the male Yellow-breasted Chat has a yellow breast (pretty obvious), but its potential mates or rivals also see ultraviolet feathers on his chest that set him apart from the females of the species. The theory was again proven in another study in which scientists placed taxidermied male and female Chats in the wild to see how their living counterparts would react. Males stayed true to their territorial nature and attacked the stuffed male Chats and tried winning over the taxidermied females. Thus, they obviously were seeing something that the researchers couldn’t.

例如，雄性黃胸海雀的胸部是黃色的(很明顯)，但它潛在的配偶或競(jìng)爭(zhēng)對(duì)手也能在它的胸部看到紫外線羽毛，這使它與同類的雌性區(qū)別開(kāi)來(lái)。這一理論在另一項(xiàng)研究中再次得到了證實(shí)。在這項(xiàng)研究中，科學(xué)家們將野生動(dòng)物標(biāo)本中的雄性動(dòng)物和雌性動(dòng)物放在一起，觀察它們活著的同類會(huì)有什么反應(yīng)。雄性則堅(jiān)守自己的領(lǐng)地本性，攻擊雄性填充標(biāo)本，并試圖贏得雌性標(biāo)本。因此，他們顯然看到了一些研究人員看不到的東西。

Image credits: unknown

More info: Cynthia Tedore