Lizard Stripes May Mess Up Predators' Timing
蜥蜴的条纹障眼法

A lizard's stripes may make them look like they’re moving slower than they really are, confusing predators that tend to aim at the head but may wind up with the tail. 
蜥蜴身上的条纹或许能使它们的动作看上去比实际更慢，从而迷惑捕食者，使得它们的当头一击只能击中尾巴。

撰文/播音 Karen Hopkin
翻译 Meatle
审校 吴非

They say that wearing stripes can make you look thinner. Well, lizards don’t care about looking svelte. But their stripes might help them avoid getting caught by a hungry predator—and not by camouflage. No, it may be that the stripes make them look like they’re moving slower than they really are, messing up the predators’ timing. That’s according to a report in the journal Royal Society Open Science. [Gopal Murali and Ullasa Kodandaramaiah, Deceived by stripes: conspicuous patterning on vital anterior body parts can redirect predatory strikes to expendable posterior organs]
总有人跟你说过，穿条纹衣服能让你看上去更瘦点。对于蜥蜴来说，它们当然不会在意自己好不好看。它们的条纹或许能使它们从捕食者的口中逃生。这不是依靠条纹来进行伪装，而是条纹能够令捕食者混淆，误以为蜥蜴的移动速度比实际要慢。该研究刊登在Royal Society Open Science上。

Gopal Murali at the Indian Institute of Science Education Research got interested in the question of why so many lizards sport stripes while perusing hundreds of images of the conspicuously decorated critters.
来自印度科学教育研究协会（the Indian Institute of Science Education Research）的Gopal Murali在观察了数百张有着引人注目的装饰的动物图片后，对“蜥蜴们为何偏好条纹”产生了兴趣。

“Surprisingly when we looked into the literature we did not find any direct experimental evidence for the role of striped coloration in lizards.”
“我们惊讶于在已有的文献之中，我们无法找到蜥蜴条纹的作用的直接试验证据。”

Seems such eye-catching coloration would make the bearers easier for predators to spot in the wild. So Murali wondered whether bright stripes might create a sort of optical illusion, one that would disorient predators and maybe get them to grab a lizard’s tail rather than a more vital body part.
看起来，这种纹理会令背负者在野外更易于被捕食者察觉。因此Murali好奇这些明亮的条纹是否使捕食者产生了视觉错觉，从而令捕食者的致命一击只能集中蜥蜴的尾巴。

“Since it is well known that the tail of lizards can be easily lost and most of the predators are known to attack the head or body of lizards, we thought that the purpose of contrasting stripes on the body of lizards in motion might actually trick predators to attack the tail which doesn’t cost much for the lizards when its life is at risk.”
“众所周知，蜥蜴的尾巴很容易脱落，同时大多数捕食者都会选择攻击蜥蜴的头部或是身体，我们猜想这种醒目的条纹的作用是在蜥蜴运动的时候扰乱捕食者，使攻击落在了尾巴上，从而使蜥蜴在面临生命危险时付出最小的代价。”

But does such stripy subterfuge really work that way? To test the idea, Murali could not change the colors of actual animals to see whether racing stripes can really save a lizard’s hide, more so than solid colors or random blotches. And he knew he couldn’t convince live predators to try to capture fake lizard models. So he did the next best thing.
这样的诡计真的有效么？Murali无法通过改变这些蜥蜴的颜色来推断条纹是否比单一颜色或是任意颜色的斑点更能帮助蜥蜴躲开致命一击。同时，他也无法令捕食者去攻击一只蜥蜴模型。因此，他退而求其次，采用了另一种方法。

 “We carried out the experiment using humans as surrogate predators and asked them to play a game on a touch screen where they attack the virtual lizards with different color patterns.”
“我们用人类代替捕食者，让他们在触屏设备上玩游戏，考察他们在攻击不同颜色图案的虚拟蜥蜴时的表现差异。”

Murali had more than 150 volunteers lunge for rectangular prey on a touch screen. He suggested that they aim for the “head”…the region at the front of the rectangle based on which way it was moving. Some rectangles had stripes along their fronts. Others had spots or had stripy bottoms.
150名志愿者参与了Murali的“长方体狩猎”试验。Murali建议志愿者们去攻击“头部”…也就是长方体移动方向的前端。一些长方体的前端有条纹，另一些则有斑点或是在尾部有条纹。

Turns out the volunteer predators had a tougher time catching the virtual prey that was striped on top than any of the other variations. And when the hunters made any contact it tended to be at the tail. Because, Murali determined, the effect of the stripes was to make the lizards appear slower than they actually were.
结果表明，比起其他图案组合，志愿者更难捉住前端有条纹的“蜥蜴”。同时，“捕食者”们的头部攻击更多落在了“蜥蜴”的尾部。这使得Murali认定，是条纹使捕食者觉得蜥蜴移动得更慢。

“The findings are analogous to the striped pattern being a force field which prevents predators from attacking the most important body parts and hence redirecting the attacks to the tail.”
“该发现表明条纹就像力场一样，这些图案干扰捕食者，使它们的攻击由重要的器官转移到尾巴上。”

Leaving more lizards alive, to flee another day.
这使更多的蜥蜴活下来，继续求生之旅。