南极贼欧可以识别个体人类-凯发k8官网

南极贼欧可以识别个体人类

文章来源：未知文章作者：enread 发布时间：2016-03-27 08:09 字体： [ ]　

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you may have heard of crows, ¹, and mockingbirds recognizing individual people. these birds live among people, so it may be natural that they learn to ² people. but what about the animals that live in remote areas? scientists in south korea studied brown skuas living in antarctica and reported that these birds too recognize people who had ³ accessed the nests to measure their eggs and nestlings. "i had to defend myself against the skuas' attack," says yeong-deok han, a phd student at inha university. "when i was with other researchers, the birds flew over me and tried to hit me. even when i changed my field clothes, they followed me. the birds seemed to know me no matter what i wear."

the research team performed a series of experiments. the researchers checked the nests once a week to monitor the breeding status, and the skuas attacked at closer distances with repeated visits of the researchers. to test if the birds specifically distinguish the researchers who visited the nests from those who did not, a pair of humans consisting of nest intruder (who accessed the nests) and neutral human (who never accessed the nests before) approached to the nests and walked towards the opposite directions. all seven skua pairs followed and tried to attack the nest intruder but never followed the neutral human.

"it is amazing that brown skuas, which evolved and lived in human-free habitats, recognized individual humans just after 3 or 4 visits. it seems that they have very high levels of ⁴ abilities." says dr. won young lee, a senior researcher from korea polar research institute who led the research. the cognitive abilities of antarctic animals have not been well studied before. brown skuas have been recorded to steal food from other birds or even steal breast milk of nursing elephant seals. according to the researchers, this opportunistic feeding habits may make them cleverer with time.

dr. lee commented: "since this area has been inhabited by humans only after the antarctic research stations were installed, we think that the skuas could acquire the discriminatory abilities during a short-term period of living near humans."

these findings are published in the journal animal cognition.

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收听单词发音

1
喜鹊（magpie的复数形式）
参考例句：
they set forth chattering like magpies. 他们叽叽喳喳地出发了。 james: besides, we can take some pied magpies home, for bbq. 此外，我们还可以打些喜鹊回家，用来烧烤。

2
vi.(between)区分；vt.区别；使不同
参考例句：
you can differentiate between the houses by the shape of their chimneys.你可以凭借烟囱形状的不同来区分这两幢房子。 he never learned to differentiate between good and evil.他从未学会分辨善恶。

3
adv.以前，先前（地）
参考例句：
the bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。 let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

4
adj.认知的，认识的，有感知的
参考例句：
as children grow older,their cognitive processes become sharper.孩子们越长越大，他们的认知过程变得更为敏锐。 the cognitive psychologist is like the tinker who wants to know how a clock works.认知心理学者倒很像一个需要通晓钟表如何运转的钟表修理匠。