研究表明 小蝙蝠能學會不同的方言

Bats are sophisticated communicators. And not just when they're in vampire form.

蝙蝠可是經驗豐富的交流者，而且不僅僅是在它們吸血時。

New research finds that Egyptian Fruit bats actually have regional dialects, depending on the bat chatter that surrounds them as they grow up. The study is in the journal PLOS Biology.

新的研究發現，埃及果蝠實際上有自己的方言，這取決於在它們成長時聚集在周圍的蝙蝠羣的叫聲。這項研究發表在《PLOS生物學》期刊上。

Among humans, one person's howdy is another one's g'day. Wild populations of bats also display group-specific vocalizations.

在人類中，有的人打招呼時“你好”這樣說（howdy），有的人則是那樣說（g'day）。蝙蝠的野生種羣也顯示着這種類屬特異性的發聲。

But how do these vocal characteristics arise? Do they reflect innate, genetic differences or are they learned?

但是，這些發聲特色是如何形成的呢？它們是否反映了先天的遺傳差異特性，還是後天習得的呢？

And if bat accents are acquired, who are these furry fliers imitating? Their parents? Or their roost-mates?

並且，如果蝙蝠的叫聲是後天習得，那麼這些毛茸茸的飛行員們是在模仿誰呢？它們的父母嗎？還是它們的同伴？

To find out, Yossi Yovall at Tel Aviv University and his colleagues captured 15 pregnant fruit bats and divided them into three groups, each of which was housed in its own separate box. The mothers gave birth inside these boxes and their babies, called pups, lived there for a full year.

爲了找到這個答案，特拉維夫大學的約西·約維爾和他的同事們捕獲了15只懷孕的果蝠，並將它們分成三組，每組分別安置在獨立的盒子裏。母親果蝠在這些箱子裏生了小果蝠，並在這裏住了一整年。

During that time, the researchers exposed the pups to a select symphony of bat sounds. Fruit bats in the wild are reared in colonies that contain dozens to thousands of individuals, so they're used to being surrounded by a cacophony of calls and other vocal communiques.

在這期間，研究人員將這些幼年蝙蝠暴露在一些特定的蝙蝠聲音中。野生的果蝠是在有幾十到數千個個體的羣體中長大的，所以它們習慣於被一種刺耳的叫聲和其他的聲音所包圍。

For one of the boxes, Yovall and his team exposed the young batlings to a selection of squeaks that were biased toward the higher frequencies. Pups in the second box heard lower-pitched peeps.

對於其中的一個盒子，約維爾和他的團隊將小果蝠暴露在一些較高頻率的吱吱聲中。在第二個箱子裏的小果蝠則聽到低音。

And the third box got a random sampling of fruit bat hits that was heavy on the mid-range frequencies but also included those at either end of the aural spectrum. "And what we found is that they were influenced by the playback that they heard." said Yovall.

而第三個盒子裏是一些隨機取樣的大聲的果蝠中頻聲，也包括在聽覺範圍兩端的高頻音和低頻音。約維爾表示：“我們發現，它們會受到所聽到的回放聲的影響。”

"So the control group was using a vocal repertoire that was identical to their mothers and identical to fruit bats in the colony here in Israel. But the two manipulated groups were using different actually were able to create three different groups of fruit bats with three different dialects in the lab."

“所以，對照組使用了一個和它們的母親完全一樣的聲音，和以色列區域的果蝠相同。但是，這兩個被操縱的小組使用了不同的方言...實際上我們能夠在實驗室裏用三種不同的組合方法創造出三組不同的方言。”

Of course, birds are famous for their songs. Which the males learn from tutors, typically their dads. But Yovall says when it comes to vocal learning, bats march to a different drummer.

當然了，鳥兒以它們的歌聲聞名。雄鳥師從導師，通常是向它們的爸爸學習。但是約維爾說稱，當談到鳴叫學習時，蝙蝠可以學到不同的聲音。

"Here we show that even though the pups were with their mothers, they were exposed to their mother's normal repertoire, they were still influenced by the background vocalizations that they heard."

“我們要表明的是，即使幼仔與它們的母親在一起，接觸到的是母親正常的叫聲，它們仍然受到它們聽到的背景發聲的影響。”