每個人都需要一個朋友。即使是鯊魚

每個人都需要一個朋友。即使是鯊魚

Sharks are often maligned as Hollywood monsters, the lone wolves lurking in the deep, hunting for prey. (Cue Jaws theme song).

鯊魚經(jīng)常被人誣蔑為好萊塢的怪物，孤獨(dú)的狼潛伏在深海中，捕食獵物。(提示：《大白鯊》主題曲)。

But that caricature of sharks is increasingly out of step with what scientists are learning about the animals. Instead, they say, some species of sharks are social creatures who return day after day to a group of the same fellow sharks.

但這種鯊魚的夸張描述與科學(xué)家對這種動物的了解越來越不一致。相反，他們說，有些種類的鯊魚是群居動物，它們?nèi)諒?fù)一日地回到同一群鯊魚中。

"They form these spatially structured social groups where they hang out with the same individuals over multiple years," says Yannis Papastamatiou, who runs the Predator Ecology and Conservation Lab at Florida International University.

佛羅里達(dá)國際大學(xué)捕食者生態(tài)與保護(hù)實驗室的負(fù)責(zé)人亞尼斯·帕帕斯塔瑪?shù)賷W說:“它們形成了這些空間結(jié)構(gòu)的社會群體，在那里它們與相同的個體交往多年。”

Papastamatiou's team studied gray reef sharks populating the waters off Palmyra Atoll, a sunken island ringed by coral reefs, in the central Pacific Ocean between the Hawaiian Islands and Fiji. They attached small location transmitters to 41 sharks, which allowed them to track the animals' movements around the reef. They also outfitted two sharks with small video cameras on their fins, to get what Papastamatiou calls a shark's-eye view of their daily lives.

帕帕斯塔瑪?shù)賷W的團(tuán)隊研究了生活在巴爾米拉環(huán)礁附近海域的灰礁鯊。巴爾米拉環(huán)礁是位于夏威夷群島和斐濟(jì)之間的太平洋中部一個珊瑚礁環(huán)繞的沉沒島嶼。他們在41條鯊魚身上安裝了小型定位發(fā)射器，這樣就可以追蹤鯊魚在珊瑚礁周圍的活動。他們還在兩只鯊魚的鰭上安裝了小型攝像機(jī)，以獲得帕帕斯塔瑪?shù)賷W所說的鯊魚視角下的日常生活。

After tracking the sharks for four years, the researchers found that the same groupings of sharks — ranging from a couple up to as many as 20 — frequently returned to the same parts of the reef over and over again. They also found that some of the groups stuck together for the duration of the study — longer than previous studies have observed.

在跟蹤這些鯊魚四年之后，研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，同一群鯊魚，從一對到多達(dá)20只——經(jīng)常一次又一次地回到珊瑚礁的同一區(qū)域。他們還發(fā)現(xiàn)，在整個研究過程中，一些群體成員粘在一起，比之前的研究觀察到的時間還要長。

The findings appear this week in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, the Royal Society's journal for biological research.

這一發(fā)現(xiàn)發(fā)表在本周的《英國皇家學(xué)會學(xué)報B》上，這是英國皇家學(xué)會的生物研究雜志。

The sharks might be motivated to stay together, Papastamatiou says, because it makes hunting for food easier.

帕帕斯塔瑪?shù)賷W說，鯊魚可能會有動機(jī)呆在一起，因為這樣更容易獵食。

"If we hang out together and I see something, then you can come and try and take advantage of that," he says. "And alternatively, if you see something, then I can try and take advantage of that."

他說:“如果我們一起出去玩，我看到了一些東西，你就可以過來撈點好處。”“或者，如果你看到了什么，我也可以試著撈點好處。”

He emphasizes that the sharks don't cooperatively hunt, but says that as long as the group isn't too large — which would raise competition and conflict — socializing appears to benefit the sharks. And that may be one of the factors that led to sociality in the species.

他強(qiáng)調(diào)，鯊魚不會合作捕獵，但他說，只要群體不是太大(那樣會增加競爭和沖突)社交活動似乎對鯊魚有利。這可能是導(dǎo)致該物種社會性的因素之一。

David Shiffman, who studies shark ecology and conservation at Arizona State University, says he was surprised to learn the sharks stuck together for so long.

在亞利桑那州立大學(xué)研究鯊魚生態(tài)和保護(hù)的大衛(wèi)·希夫曼說，他很驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)這些鯊魚長時間粘在一起。

"I mean, I don't have a lot of friends I do that with," he jokes.

“我的意思是，和我一起做這種事的朋友不多，”他開玩笑說。

Sharks are smart creatures, Shiffman says. In addition to knowing where to grab a bite by watching their peers, he says, some species of sharks also can learn to solve simple puzzles, just by watching other sharks solve them. Given their intelligence and social abilities, he says perhaps it's time to drop prejudices about sharks.

鯊魚是聰明的生物，希夫曼說。他說，除了通過觀察同伴來知道去哪里捕食之外，一些種類的鯊魚還可以通過觀察其他鯊魚來學(xué)習(xí)解決簡單的難題?？紤]到它們的智慧和社交能力，他說也許是時候放下對鯊魚的偏見了。

"It turns out that they are a lot smarter than most people think, and they have more complex social behavior and more complex ability to process their environment and learn and change," Shiffman says.

“事實證明，它們比大多數(shù)人認(rèn)為的要聰明得多，它們的社會行為更復(fù)雜，處理環(huán)境、學(xué)習(xí)和改變的能力也更復(fù)雜，”希夫曼說。