双语新闻：美国一水族馆的黄貂鱼罕见地出现孤雌生殖
Charlotte has spent much of her life in captivity at a non-profit aquarium in North Carolina's Appalachian Mountains. She is an ocean animal called a round stingray.
夏洛特一生中大部分时间都被关在北卡罗来纳州阿巴拉契亚山脉的一家非营利水族馆里。她是一种叫做圆黄貂鱼的海洋动物。
She is about 3,700 kilometers from her natural habitat in the Pacific Ocean off southern California. And she has not shared space with a male of her species in at least eight years.
她距离加州南部太平洋的自然栖息地约3700公里。而且她至少有八年没有和同类中的雄性共享空间了。
But Charlotte is about to give birth. The reddish-brown stingray is pregnant with as many as four young, called pups. They were created by a rare process of natural reproduction called parthenogenesis. A female animal develops an egg into an embryo without fertilization material from a male.
但夏洛特就要生孩子了。这条红棕色的黄貂鱼怀孕了多达4只幼崽。它们是通过一种罕见的自然繁殖过程产生的，这种过程被称为孤雌生殖。雌性动物在没有雄性受精物质的情况下将卵子发育成胚胎。
Charlotte will give birth to her young at home: Team ECCO Aquarium and Shark Lab on Main Street in Hendersonville. Brenda Ramer formed the organization and serves as its chief.
夏洛特将在家里生下她的孩子:位于亨德森维尔主街的ECCO团队水族馆和鲨鱼实验室。布伦达·雷默成立了该组织，并担任其负责人。
She said, when caretakers first noticed a lump on Charlotte's back, they thought it might be a cancerous growth. So, they examined the animal with an ultrasound machine, which makes images using sound. The images showed that Charlotte was pregnant.
她说，当护理人员第一次注意到夏洛特背部有一个肿块时，他们认为这可能是癌细胞的生长。因此，他们用超声波机器检查了这只动物，超声波机器利用声音成像。照片显示夏洛特怀孕了。
The aquarium team was shocked.
水族馆团队震惊了。
"We were all like, ‘Shut the back door. There's no way,'" Ramer said. "We thought we were overfeeding her. But we were overfeeding her because she has more mouths to feed."
“我们都说，‘关上后门。不可能，’”雷默说。“我们以为我们喂得太多了。但我们给她喂得太多了，因为她还有更多的嘴要喂。”
The small aquarium encourages local schoolchildren and others to take an interest in science. Now, they are getting a real-life lesson few witness. Parthenogenesis can happen in some insects, fish, amphibians, birds and reptiles, but it is extremely unusual. Documented examples have included California condors, Komodo dragons and yellow-bellied water snakes.
这个小水族馆鼓励当地的学生和其他人对科学产生兴趣。现在，他们正在接受一个很少有人亲眼目睹的现实教训。某些昆虫、鱼类、两栖动物、鸟类和爬行动物也会发生孤雌生殖，但这种情况极为罕见。记录在案的例子包括加州秃鹰、科莫多巨蜥和黄腹水蛇。
Kady Lyons is a research scientist at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. She is not connected to the North Carolina aquarium. She said Charlotte's pregnancy is the only documented example of parthenogenesis in the round stingray that she knows of.
Kady Lyons是亚特兰大乔治亚水族馆的一名研究科学家。她和北卡罗来纳水族馆没有联系。她说夏洛特的怀孕是她所知道的唯一有记录的圆黄貂鱼孤雌生殖的例子。
But Lyons is not shocked. Other kinds of rays, and related fish such as sharks, have had these kinds of pregnancies under human care.
但莱昂斯并不感到震惊。其他种类的鳐鱼和相关的鱼类，如鲨鱼，在人类的照顾下也有过这种怀孕。
"I'm not surprised, because nature finds a way of having this happen," she said.
“我并不感到惊讶，因为大自然总有办法让这种情况发生，”她说。
To be clear, Lyons said, these animals are not cloning themselves. Instead, a female's egg joins with another cell in the female. This leads to cell division and creation of an embryo.
莱昂斯说，需要澄清的是，这些动物并不是在克隆自己。相反，雌性的卵子与雌性体内的另一个细胞结合。这导致细胞分裂和胚胎的产生。
"We don't know why it happens," Lyons said. "Just that it's kind of this really neat phenomenon that they seem to be able to do."
“我们不知道为什么会这样，”莱昂斯说。“只是他们似乎能够做到这一点，这是一种非常巧妙的现象。”
Charlotte lives in a tank of about 8,300 liters of water. Ramer said the aquarium is hoping to get a tank nearly twice that size for Charlotte's young. They also want to put live cameras up for people to see them.
夏洛特生活在一个大约8300升水的水箱里。雷默说，水族馆希望为夏洛特的幼崽提供一个几乎两倍大的水箱。他们还想安装现场摄像机，让人们看到他们。
"It is very rare to happen," Ramer said. "But it's happening in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural North Carolina, hundreds of miles from the ocean."
“这种情况非常罕见，”雷默说。“但它发生在北卡罗来纳州农村的蓝岭山脉中央，距离海洋数百英里。”
Round stingrays like Charlotte are common along the Pacific Ocean coasts of southern California and Mexico. They often rest on the ocean's sandy bottom near land.
像夏洛特这样的圆黄貂鱼在南加州和墨西哥的太平洋沿岸很常见。它们经常在靠近陆地的海洋沙质底部休息。
In the wild, they are about the size of a food plate. They come in all shades of brown. They eat small animals like worms, crabs and mollusks. And round stingrays are sometimes eaten by sharks, seals and giant sea bass.
在野外，它们大约有一个食物盘那么大。它们有深浅不一的棕色。它们吃小动物，比如蠕虫、螃蟹和软体动物。圆黄貂鱼有时会被鲨鱼、海豹和巨型海鲈鱼吃掉。
The round ray is well known to humans who like to go in the ocean. The ray can sting when stepped on.
喜欢去海洋的人都知道圆鳐鱼。这种鳐鱼被踩到时会蜇人。
Lyons finds the species fascinating.
里昂发现这个物种很迷人。
"I'm glad the round stingray is getting the media attention that it deserves," Lyons said. "It's not necessarily as sexy as a white shark, but they do a lot of really neat stuff."
莱昂斯说:“我很高兴圆黄貂鱼得到了它应得的媒体关注。”“它不一定像白鲨那样性感，但它们做了很多非常整洁的事情。”
夏洛特一生中大部分时间都被关在北卡罗来纳州阿巴拉契亚山脉的一家非营利水族馆里。她是一种叫做圆黄貂鱼的海洋动物。
She is about 3,700 kilometers from her natural habitat in the Pacific Ocean off southern California. And she has not shared space with a male of her species in at least eight years.
她距离加州南部太平洋的自然栖息地约3700公里。而且她至少有八年没有和同类中的雄性共享空间了。
But Charlotte is about to give birth. The reddish-brown stingray is pregnant with as many as four young, called pups. They were created by a rare process of natural reproduction called parthenogenesis. A female animal develops an egg into an embryo without fertilization material from a male.
但夏洛特就要生孩子了。这条红棕色的黄貂鱼怀孕了多达4只幼崽。它们是通过一种罕见的自然繁殖过程产生的，这种过程被称为孤雌生殖。雌性动物在没有雄性受精物质的情况下将卵子发育成胚胎。
Charlotte will give birth to her young at home: Team ECCO Aquarium and Shark Lab on Main Street in Hendersonville. Brenda Ramer formed the organization and serves as its chief.
夏洛特将在家里生下她的孩子:位于亨德森维尔主街的ECCO团队水族馆和鲨鱼实验室。布伦达·雷默成立了该组织，并担任其负责人。
She said, when caretakers first noticed a lump on Charlotte's back, they thought it might be a cancerous growth. So, they examined the animal with an ultrasound machine, which makes images using sound. The images showed that Charlotte was pregnant.
她说，当护理人员第一次注意到夏洛特背部有一个肿块时，他们认为这可能是癌细胞的生长。因此，他们用超声波机器检查了这只动物，超声波机器利用声音成像。照片显示夏洛特怀孕了。
The aquarium team was shocked.
水族馆团队震惊了。
"We were all like, ‘Shut the back door. There's no way,'" Ramer said. "We thought we were overfeeding her. But we were overfeeding her because she has more mouths to feed."
“我们都说，‘关上后门。不可能，’”雷默说。“我们以为我们喂得太多了。但我们给她喂得太多了，因为她还有更多的嘴要喂。”
The small aquarium encourages local schoolchildren and others to take an interest in science. Now, they are getting a real-life lesson few witness. Parthenogenesis can happen in some insects, fish, amphibians, birds and reptiles, but it is extremely unusual. Documented examples have included California condors, Komodo dragons and yellow-bellied water snakes.
这个小水族馆鼓励当地的学生和其他人对科学产生兴趣。现在，他们正在接受一个很少有人亲眼目睹的现实教训。某些昆虫、鱼类、两栖动物、鸟类和爬行动物也会发生孤雌生殖，但这种情况极为罕见。记录在案的例子包括加州秃鹰、科莫多巨蜥和黄腹水蛇。
Kady Lyons is a research scientist at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta. She is not connected to the North Carolina aquarium. She said Charlotte's pregnancy is the only documented example of parthenogenesis in the round stingray that she knows of.
Kady Lyons是亚特兰大乔治亚水族馆的一名研究科学家。她和北卡罗来纳水族馆没有联系。她说夏洛特的怀孕是她所知道的唯一有记录的圆黄貂鱼孤雌生殖的例子。
But Lyons is not shocked. Other kinds of rays, and related fish such as sharks, have had these kinds of pregnancies under human care.
但莱昂斯并不感到震惊。其他种类的鳐鱼和相关的鱼类，如鲨鱼，在人类的照顾下也有过这种怀孕。
"I'm not surprised, because nature finds a way of having this happen," she said.
“我并不感到惊讶，因为大自然总有办法让这种情况发生，”她说。
To be clear, Lyons said, these animals are not cloning themselves. Instead, a female's egg joins with another cell in the female. This leads to cell division and creation of an embryo.
莱昂斯说，需要澄清的是，这些动物并不是在克隆自己。相反，雌性的卵子与雌性体内的另一个细胞结合。这导致细胞分裂和胚胎的产生。
"We don't know why it happens," Lyons said. "Just that it's kind of this really neat phenomenon that they seem to be able to do."
“我们不知道为什么会这样，”莱昂斯说。“只是他们似乎能够做到这一点，这是一种非常巧妙的现象。”
Charlotte lives in a tank of about 8,300 liters of water. Ramer said the aquarium is hoping to get a tank nearly twice that size for Charlotte's young. They also want to put live cameras up for people to see them.
夏洛特生活在一个大约8300升水的水箱里。雷默说，水族馆希望为夏洛特的幼崽提供一个几乎两倍大的水箱。他们还想安装现场摄像机，让人们看到他们。
"It is very rare to happen," Ramer said. "But it's happening in the middle of the Blue Ridge Mountains in rural North Carolina, hundreds of miles from the ocean."
“这种情况非常罕见，”雷默说。“但它发生在北卡罗来纳州农村的蓝岭山脉中央，距离海洋数百英里。”
Round stingrays like Charlotte are common along the Pacific Ocean coasts of southern California and Mexico. They often rest on the ocean's sandy bottom near land.
像夏洛特这样的圆黄貂鱼在南加州和墨西哥的太平洋沿岸很常见。它们经常在靠近陆地的海洋沙质底部休息。
In the wild, they are about the size of a food plate. They come in all shades of brown. They eat small animals like worms, crabs and mollusks. And round stingrays are sometimes eaten by sharks, seals and giant sea bass.
在野外，它们大约有一个食物盘那么大。它们有深浅不一的棕色。它们吃小动物，比如蠕虫、螃蟹和软体动物。圆黄貂鱼有时会被鲨鱼、海豹和巨型海鲈鱼吃掉。
The round ray is well known to humans who like to go in the ocean. The ray can sting when stepped on.
喜欢去海洋的人都知道圆鳐鱼。这种鳐鱼被踩到时会蜇人。
Lyons finds the species fascinating.
里昂发现这个物种很迷人。
"I'm glad the round stingray is getting the media attention that it deserves," Lyons said. "It's not necessarily as sexy as a white shark, but they do a lot of really neat stuff."
莱昂斯说:“我很高兴圆黄貂鱼得到了它应得的媒体关注。”“它不一定像白鲨那样性感，但它们做了很多非常整洁的事情。”
