螳螂捕 鱼

We vertebrates think we're so smart, and we are, comparatively speaking. But that doesn't mean other members of the animal kingdom aren't capable of complex learning — even the ones that eat their mates and have eyes that look like fencing masks.

作为脊椎动物的我们认为自己是灰常聪明的，相对来说，事实也确实如此。但是这并不意味着动物王国就没有能够进行复杂学习的种子选手，即使是会吃掉老公、眼睛像击剑面具的螳螂，也是会学习的。

New research based on one man's observations on his nightly trip to a rooftop garden to watch a male Asian praying mantis (Hierodula tenuidentata) hunt fish suggests that we might not give invertebrates — at least not praying mantises — the credit they deserve when it comes to complex problem-solving.

最新的研究基于一位研究员每晚在屋顶花园对一只雄性亚洲螳螂(学名：细齿斧螳)捕鱼(对，你没看错，不是捕蝉是捕鱼)的观察，即便如此，我们可能也不会给一只解决了复杂问题的无脊椎动物——至少是不会给一只螳螂它应得的称赞，哪怕它真的做到了。

For five consecutive nights in a row, researcher Rajesh Puttaswamaiah returned to watch the mantis as it hunted for fish in a little fountain on a rooftop garden in Karnataka, India. The mantis hunted late into the night, and caught and ate at least two guppies (Poecilia reticulata) each evening. This was unusual because no previous scientific evidence points to a mantis's preference for fish (though they've been known to eat them when given fish in a laboratory setting), or even their ability to catch them. The reason for this is primarily that their eyes seem to be made for daytime hunting, and that their vision would probably be too poor to hunt aquatic animals, since water adds a extra layer of complexity to the task.

连续五晚，研究员Rajesh Puttaswamaiah都会去观察这只在印度卡纳塔克邦一个屋顶花园的小喷泉捕鱼的螳螂。这只螳螂每天都会来到这里并一直蹲守至深夜，每晚捕到并吃掉至少两条古比鱼(我们叫做孔雀鱼)。这并不寻常，因为早先并没有相关的研究显示螳螂偏爱吃鱼(尽管在实验环境下，如果喂它们鱼的话它们会吃)，更不知道它们还会亲自“动手”捕鱼。因为螳螂的眼睛决定了它们似乎只能在白天狩猎，而且因为视力太差，而水本身又会增加捕捉的难度，因此才会认为螳螂根本无法捕捉水里的生物。

Puttaswamaiah and his coauthors speculate that mantises might have evolved impressive learning abilities and that the repetitive behavior might have been the result of personal experience, which allowed the mantis to develop its hunting methods and return to a location of previous success. They realized the mantis's nightly fishing vigil means something important about the insect's ability to learn:

Puttaswamaiah和他的伙伴推测，螳螂可能已经进化出了学习能力，就像人那样，通过重复的行为而获得某项技能，从而使螳螂创造出了自己的捕猎方式，并会回到先前获得过成功的位置再次进行捕猎。他们意识到，螳螂的“夜钓”行为意味着昆虫的学习能力的重要性"。

Remembering the prey's abundance in a particular site, in relation to their ease of capture and their nutritional content, could be one important factor of this choice and indirectly influence the individual predator's fitness," said the authors in a press release. "This should be investigated in further studies."

“记住某一猎物丰富的特定位置，这与其捕获猎物的容易度和猎物所含的营养有关，这可能是一个重要的、并会间接影响个体捕食者的健康的因素，”研究者提到。“这应该进行进一步的研究。