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BBC News:考拉为何爱抱树

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Now, have you ever wondered why koalas hug trees? And apparently, according to a new scientific study it is to stay cool. That discovery was made by researchers from the University of Melbourne who were looking at how koalas regulate their body temperature.

你曾想过为什么考拉抱树吗?根据最新科学研究表明,显然考拉抱树是为了保持凉爽。这项研究是墨尔本大学的科研人员在观察考拉如何调节自身体温时发现的。

And one of my students Natalie Briscoe, her PHD was focused on this question in terms of the koala. And one of the questions we want to ask about the koala is, do they use behavior at all to regulate their temperature, are they able to choose places in their trees that make them a bit more comfortable.

我的一名学生纳塔莉·布里斯科的博士论文就是集中研究考拉的这个问题的,而且也是我们都想要问的问题,考拉们是完全用行为来调控它们的体温吗?它们有能力在它们的树上选择能让他们舒服点的地方吗?

And how did you go about finding this out?

那么,你们是怎样发现这点的呢?

Well, initially we went about this by putting a little weather station on a very long pole and lifting that weather station right up next to the koalas that we had radio transmitters on, and at the same time going around to other random places in their habitat and measuring the conditions in the trees of those locations. But what Natalie noticed was that the koalas in the hot weather would come down and will go to the thicker trunks. And they would flop onto those trunks and drop them limbs there. And we couldn't quite understand why they were doing that, but she also sought to measure the tree trunk temperatures and we found that they are actually quite a bit cool than the air. And then we took a special kind of camera that takes pictures of heat and tells us the temperature of every service in the picture. And it was so obvious once we got those pictures back. What the koalas were doing? They were putting their bottoms into the trees and dumping all their excess heating to the tree.

刚开始时,我们先要在长竿上安装上小型气象站,举到考拉身边,因为先前我们已经在考拉身上也安装了无线电发射器。同时,随机选取考拉栖息地的其他地方的其他树木来测定其他其他树木的状况。但是纳塔莉注意到,在炎热天气下,考拉会从树上爬下来,选择更粗的树干,跳上去,抱住这些树干。我们刚开始时并不理解它们为何这样做,但是纳塔莉努力检测到了树干的温度,并发现树干的温度其实稍稍低于气温。然后,我们选用特殊照相机,拍下显示树干热量的照片,照片上显示出每一个照片里的树干的温度。我们把这些照片拍摄回来,一切就一目了然了。考拉到底是在做什么呢?考拉把自己的身体紧贴树木是为了把多余的热量传给树木来保持自身的凉爽。

And were you surprised by what you found because it's known or presumably zoologists know that the fur on the stomach of the koalas is a lot thinner than it is elsewhere.

你对这一发现感到惊讶吗?因为我们知道,或者说动物学家们知道,考拉腹部的皮毛要比身体其他不为薄的多。

Yeah, well, we knew that and we thought, well, maybe they, I guess one idea was that they just expose that during the hot weather so that heat comes out their chests into the air. What we didn't realize was how much cooler the tree trunks were than the air temperature.

是的,我们知道,可能我们大家会想到考拉们只需要在炎热的天气中直接把腹部露出来,把热量通过腹部直接传到空气中就好了。而我们没有意识到的是树干的温度要比空气温度低很多。

That wasn't obvious to us. It was obvious when we looked at the trees with the special camera, but it wasn't before that. And then it made a whole lot of sense. And it's really surprised a lot of biologists.

我们开始也没有太注意到这一点。直到我们用特别相机拍摄后才发现的,之前并不是很明显。使用特殊相机拍摄后才真正明白所有,而且这也让很多生物学家大吃一惊。

And it's always eucalyptus trees, is it?

考拉抱的总是桉树吗?

No, it's not. And not all eucalyptus trees is good as each other for this purpose, so we measure a whole, a few different species of eucalypts in their habitat where we did the study and also another kind of tree called acacia. And it turned out that the acacia was actually the best one. But they don't eat the leaves of the acacia trees, they only eat the leaves of the eucalypt trees.

不,不是的。并非所有的桉树都适合考拉来抱,所以我们在考拉栖息地作了一项研究,所有的树木中有几种不同的桉树类型,还有另一种树名叫刺槐,并且研究证明刺槐是最适合考拉的。但是考拉们不吃刺槐树叶,只吃桉树叶。

 


Now, have you ever wondered why koalas hug trees? And apparently, according to a new scientific study it is to stay cool. That discovery was made by researchers from the University of Melbourne who were looking at how koalas regulate their body temperature.

And one of my students Natalie Briscoe, her PHD was focused on this question in terms of the koala. And one of the questions we want to ask about the koala is, do they use behavior at all to regulate their temperature, are they able to choose places in their trees that make them a bit more comfortable.

And how did you go about finding this out?

Well, initially we went about this by putting a little weather station on a very long pole and lifting that weather station right up next to the koalas that we had radio transmitters on, and at the same time going around to other random places in their habitat and measuring the conditions in the trees of those locations. But what Natalie noticed was that the koalas in the hot weather would come down and will go to the thicker trunks. And they would flop onto those trunks and drop them limbs there. And we couldn't quite understand why they were doing that, but she also sought to measure the tree trunk temperatures and we found that they are actually quite a bit cool than the air. And then we took a special kind of camera that takes pictures of heat and tells us the temperature of every service in the picture. And it was so obvious once we got those pictures back. What the koalas were doing? They were putting their bottoms into the trees and dumping all their excess heating to the tree.

And were you surprised by what you found because it's known or presumably zoologists know that the fur on the stomach of the koalas is a lot thinner than it is elsewhere.

Yeah, well, we knew that and we thought, well, maybe they, I guess one idea was that they just expose that during the hot weather so that heat comes out their chests into the air. What we didn't realize was how much cooler the tree trunks were than the air temperature.

That wasn't obvious to us. It was obvious when we looked at the trees with the special camera, but it wasn't before that. And then it made a whole lot of sense. And it's really surprised a lot of biologists.

And it's always eucalyptus trees, is it?

No, it's not. And not all eucalyptus trees is good as each other for this purpose, so we measure a whole, a few different species of eucalypts in their habitat where we did the study and also another kind of tree called acacia. And it turned out that the acacia was actually the best one. But they don't eat the leaves of the acacia trees, they only eat the leaves of the eucalypt trees.

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