Humans and Birds Cooperate to Share Beehive Bounty
人鸟合作共享蜂巢奖励

播音/撰文  莎拉·乔多什（Sara Chodosh）
翻译 bing
审校 吴非

The Yao people of Mozambique vocally signal honeyguide birds to show them the location of hives, which the people harvest and share with the birds.
莫桑比克共和国的尧族人用声音向响蜜鸟（honeyguide birds）发出信号，让它们指引蜂巢的位置。他们通过这种方式收获蜂蜜并把蜂蜜分给鸟儿。

This is a story about the birds and the bees. When the Yao people of Mozambique want to find beehives full of honey they make this noise [brrrr-hm]. That sound attracts the attention of what are appropriately called honeyguide birds.
这是一个关于鸟和蜜蜂的故事。当莫桑比克共和国的尧族人想找充满蜜蜂的蜂巢时，他们就会发出类似于“brrrr-hm”的噪音。这种声音可以吸引响蜜鸟。

“If you ask Yao honey-hunters why they go brrrr-hm when they’re looking for a honeyguide, they’ll tell you, well, it’s the best way to attract a honeyguide and to maintain its attention while you’re following it to a bees'  nest.”
“如果你问尧族寻蜜人，为什么他们寻找响蜜鸟的时候要发出嗡嗡的声音，他们会告诉你，这是吸引响蜜鸟最好的方式，而且当你跟着它们找蜂巢的时候，这种声音可以使它们保持注意力。”

Claire Spottiswoode, of the University of Cambridge in England and the University of Cape Town in South Africa.
英国剑桥大学和南非开普敦大学的克莱尔·斯波蒂斯伍德（Claire Spottiswoode）如是说。

The Yao have long known that they could attract honeyguides vocally, as part of a rare example of a mutualistic relationship between people and wild animals. The humans get honey and the birds then get what they want—the previously unattainable wax of the beehive, which they consider a delicacy. Spottiswoode’s study provides evidence that the humans are actually communicating with the birds.
尧族人很久以前已经知道他们可以用声音吸引响蜜鸟，而这也是人类和野生动物互利共生的罕见范例。人类可以得到蜂蜜，鸟类也得到它们想要的，那就是它们求而不得的美食——蜂蜡。斯波蒂斯伍德的研究表明，人类是可以和鸟类进行交流的。

“We wanted to specifically test whether honeyguides responded to the exact information content of the brrrr-hm call, which signals, if you wish, ‘I’m looking for bees’ nests,’ so we wanted to distinguish that from the alternative that the call simply alerts honeyguides to the presence of humans.”
“我们想要进一步测试响蜜鸟的响应针对的是否为嗡嗡声所包含的信息，即‘我在找蜂巢’这样的信号。所以我们需要区分，它们是否仅仅在警告同伴有人类出现。”

Which the research team did—birds were much more likely to respond to brrrr-hm than to other sounds. The study is in the journal Science. [Claire N. Spottiswoode, Keith S. Begg and Colleen M. Begg, Reciprocal signaling in honeyguide-human mutualism]
研究团队证实，和其他声音相比，响蜜鸟更易于回应“brrrr-hm”声。这项研究发表在《科学》（Science）杂志上。

Honeyguides may help people, but to other birds they can be monsters.
“Honeyguides are the real Jekyll and Hyde of the bird world…like cowbirds or cuckoos, honeyguides are brood parasites—they lay their eggs in other birds’ nests and exploit the care of other species to raise their young. And their chicks hatch with these very sharp hooks at the tips of their beak, which they use to stab the host young to death as soon as they hatch.”
响蜜鸟可能会帮助人类，但对于其他鸟类来说，他们就像是恶魔一样。“响蜜鸟具有双重人格。像牛鹂和杜鹃一样，响蜜鸟就是寄生虫——它们把蛋产在其他鸟的巢穴中，让那些鸟帮它们照料、抚养自己的孩子。它们的后代的鸟喙前端有很锋利的尖钩，当它们破壳后，它们会用尖钩将巢穴主人的雏鸟戳死”。

You can watch some of this horror-movie-worthy footage that Spottiswoode captured several years ago by googling the phrase “honeyguide murder.”
通过谷歌搜索“honeyguide murder”，你可以看斯波蒂斯伍德在几年前捕捉到的一些恐怖画面。

As Africa becomes more urbanized, fewer people are engaging the birds to help them find honey. And the relationship between honeyguides and honey-hunters may be fraying.  
随着非洲城市化进程的深化，现在很少有人用响蜜鸟来寻找蜂蜜。响蜜鸟和寻蜜者的关系也在衰败。

“A young honeyguide hatches in the nest of another species knowing how to be a honeyguide. Because it doesn’t have the opportunity to learn from its own parents. But then if that’s not reinforced by experience, it’s lost.”
“响蜜鸟幼崽在别人的巢中孵化出来，但它们知道怎样当一只向蜜鸟，因为它们没有机会向父母学习。但如果无法在实践中得到巩固，向蜜鸟的能力就会丧失。”

In the not-too-distant future then, honeyguides may still know where the beehives are—but they’ll be keeping that information to themselves.
—Sara Chodosh
在不远的将来，响蜜鸟可能仍然会知道蜂巢在哪里——但它们会保守这个秘密。