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Finches Seek Out Sick Dining Companions

When you’re looking for a table in a crowded cafeteria, you probably give wide berth to the family that sounds like it’s sharing a big dish of whooping cough. Well, not if you’re a house finch, particularly a male. Because a study in the journal Biology Letters [by Karen M. Bouwman and Dana M. Hawley at Virginia Tech; see HGw7] shows that male finches actually prefer feeding near males who are visibly ill.


要是你要在人滿為患的餐廳找個(gè)位子,那你肯定會離那些有百日咳癥狀的人們遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)的。但如果你是只雀,尤其還要是只雄雀,估計(jì)就不會這么干了。為什么呢?《生物學(xué)通訊》雜志上的一篇文章中寫道:實(shí)際上,雄雀比較喜歡和看上去病怏怏的雄性同類一起搶食。


Finches don’t get whooping cough. But they are susceptible to infection with something called Mycoplasma gallisepticum, a bug that leaves them lethargic and sporting a bad case of conjunctivitis, otherwise known as pinkeye. The disease is quite contagious and can be passed from one finch to another while dining beak-to-beak. All the more reason, you’d think, for healthy birds to avoid sitting next to someone with crusty red peepers. Yet male house finches, when given a choice, opt to break breadcrumbs with males who are obviously under the weather.


雀類不會得百日咳,不過它們很容易感染雞敗血支原體。感染了這個(gè),雀類就會昏昏欲睡,精神不振,還伴隨著嚴(yán)重的結(jié)膜炎癥,也就是紅眼病。紅眼病是接觸傳染的,雀類嘴碰嘴搶食時(shí)就很容易相互傳染。你肯定會想,這樣一來,健健康康的小鳥們就更不會呆在有著兇惡的紅眼的同類身邊啦。但是,雄雀不一樣,它們還就喜歡呆在“病人”身邊進(jìn)食。


Why risk catching a nasty infection when all you really want to catch is a quick bite? Because males infected with Mycoplasma tend to be less aggressive. So eating with the infirm means you’re more likely to wind up with seed in your beak than a beak in your eye.

只是為了搶點(diǎn)東西吃吃嘛,干嘛還要去冒被傳染的危險(xiǎn)呢?原來,感染了支原菌的雄雀攻擊性大大減弱了,怪不得了。這樣一來,和這些“病人”在一起搶飯吃,成功的幾率可是大大增加,吃在嘴里可要比看在眼里強(qiáng)得多了??!


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