Male Lemurs Are Masters of Musk
雄性狐猴是调香大师

Lemurs sometimes mix their smelly secretions to produce a bouquet of stank—which may boost the perfume’s staying power.
有时候，狐猴会将自己发臭的分泌物混合——这可能会提高其气味的持久性。

撰文 凯伦·霍普金
翻译 陈旭琦
审校 马小崩

Ring-tailed lemurs are a chatty lot. They vocalize to exchange information. And they also communicate via a veritable smorgasbord of stinky secretions they use to mark their territory and advertise their romantic availability. But male lemurs, which have more scent glands than do females, are really masters of musk—because they sometimes mix their smelly secretions to produce a veritable bouquet of stank. And now researchers have a better idea why.
环尾狐猴（ring-tailed lemurs）十分健谈。它们通过发声来交换信息。而且它们也通过名副其实的臭分泌物进行交流，这些分泌物可用作标记领地以及突出发情的状态。但是，雄性狐猴比雌性狐猴有更多的气味腺（scent glands），它们在调制麝香上是真正的大师——因为它们有时会将自己发臭的分泌物混合。现在，研究人员们对这种现象的原因有了一种更好的解释。

Male lemurs sometimes use the scent glands on their wrists to mark tree branches and saplings. Other times, they double down, rubbing their wrists against glands on their chests to create a foul and funky fusion. This special blend can then be smeared over objects or wiped onto their tails, which the males wave at their rivals in a display that scientists refer to as a “stink fight.”
雄性狐猴有时会利用其手腕处的气味腺来标记树枝和树苗。其他时候，它们会加倍，也就是用手腕摩擦胸部的腺体来制造出腐烂发臭的混合物。这种特殊的混合物可以被涂抹在物体上或者擦拭在它们的尾巴上，雄性狐猴可以通过摇动被涂抹过的物品或者自己的尾巴，在竞争者面前进行科学家所说的“臭味战”。

But why create such a custom combination? Perhaps adding the oily exudate from the chest alters the information conveyed by the wrist. Or maybe it acts as a kind of preservative that makes the wrist signal longer lasting.
但是，为什么雄性狐猴习惯做这种混合物呢？也许原因在于，增加来自胸部的油状分泌物可以改变那些通过手腕而传达的信息。又可能这种混合物起到了防腐剂的作用，能够让手腕传达的信号更加持久。

To find out, researchers gathered secretions from a dozen ring-tailed lemurs at the Duke Lemur Center in North Carolina. They then presented male lemurs with wooden dowels that were doused with either the wrist fragrance, the chest scent, or a mixture of the two. And they found that males spent more time sniffing the stick with the mixture, which suggests that the fragrant combination does contain more interesting information than the solo scents alone.
为了找到原因，研究人员们收集了北卡罗来纳州杜克狐猴中心（Duke Lemur Center）里十二只狐猴的分泌物。他们向雄性狐猴们展示了带有狐猴手腕气味、胸部分泌物或者两者混合物的木销钉。他们发现雄性狐猴花费更多的时间来闻带有混合物的木销钉，这说明了这种混合物确实较单种气味包含更多的信息。

But the lemurs were even more interested in the odiferous amalgamation when it was left out to evaporate for 12 hours, licking the sticks to better access the dried volatile compounds. That observation supports the theory that mixing secretions actually boosts their staying power. The results are in the journal Royal Society Open Science. [Lydia K. Greene et al, Mix it and fix it: functions of composite olfactory signals in ring-tailed lemurs]
但是当这种混合的体味经过12个小时的散发后，狐猴甚至对它更感兴趣，它们会舔这些棍子来获得已经变干的挥发物质。这一观察报告支持了一个理论，这个理论是指将分泌物混合确实能够提高气味的持久性。这一结果刊登于《皇家协会开放科学》杂志（Royal Society Open Science）。

So while a rose is a rose is a rose, the perfume of the ring-tailed lemur is a complex concoction, the subtle meaning of which lies in the nose of the beholder.
所以，虽然“玫瑰之为玫瑰，正因为它是玫瑰”，长尾狐猴的香水是一种复杂的调合物，它的微妙含义在于旁观者的鼻子。