Japanese macaques at the receiving end of aggression tend to then take it out on a close associate or family member of the original aggressor.

日本猕猴在受到攻击时，会从原始攻击者密友或亲属那里寻求报复。

播音\撰文：卡伦·霍普金（Karen Hopkin）

翻译：杨枭

审校：丁可含

Don’t mess with a monkey. Because if you do, he’s might take revenge—on your family and friends. That’s according to a study of Japanese macaques, which shows that monkeys keep track of each’s others’ associates and make use of that intel when it comes time for payback. The findings are in the Royal Society journal Open Science. [Barbara Tiddi et al., Acquisition and functional consequences of social knowledge in macaques]

不要惹怒一只猴子。因为如果你这样做，他可能会对你的家人和朋友报仇。这个结论来源于一项日本的猕猴研究，该研究发现猴子会跟踪其它猴子的伙伴来伺机报复。这项研究结果发表在皇家学会期刊《开放科学》。

Researchers were interested in the question of how primates suss out social relationships, knowledge that can come in handy for maneuvering within a complex society. To assess how the macaques obtain and make use of such social know-how, the researchers decided to focus on episodes of aggression—a common feature of simian interactions.

研究人员很好奇，灵长类动物如何巧妙利用复杂社交策略来处理社会关系。为了评估猕猴如何获得和利用这些社会知识，研究人员集中关注于侵略挑衅事件，这是猿猴互动的常见行为。

They went through more than 500 hours of video recordings showing the exchanges that took place in a group of 57 macaques living in the Rome Zoo—monkeys whose genealogical relationships are well known. And they parsed some 15,000 episodes of aggression, noting the relationships among the individuals involved.

他们观看了500个小时的视频录像，展现了一群生活在罗马动物园的57只猕猴的交流，这些猴子的家谱关系为研究人员所熟知。研究人员分析了大约15,000次挑衅事件来记录个体之间的关系。

First, they confirmed that monkeys that find themselves at the receiving end of aggression tend to turn around and take it out on a third party. And that retaliation is often directed at a relative of the original aggressor.

首先，他们证实，那些受到攻击的猴子会倾向于转而找第三方发泄，一般是攻击者的亲戚。

But how do the monkeys determine who’s kin? Well, one way would be that they’ve been around long enough to have watched each other grow up. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. When researchers looked specifically at conflicts involving older monkeys, it didn’t seem that relatives were singled out for revenge.

但猴子如何断定谁是亲戚呢？一种方式就是猴子们长时间观看彼此长大。但并不总是这样。当研究人员特别观察较年长猴子的冲突时，似乎没有亲戚被单独挑选出来报复。

What does seem to be true is that victims will target their attacker’s associates—the other monkeys he hangs around with. If they’re not his relatives, they’re probably his cronies. So, close enough.

这似乎是真的，受害者们会以他们所跟踪的攻击者的亲戚为目标。即使不是他的亲戚，也是足够亲密的好友。

Interestingly, there’s a benefit to hitting family members when you’re meting out justice. Macaques that sought out the kin of the monkeys they wanted to settle a score with were less likely to be picked on again in the future. Whereas wailing on the friends appeared to offer only present satisfaction, but no such future protection.

有趣的是，当你想要寻求正义时，攻击家庭成员是个好办法。那些从亲戚那里寻求正义的猕猴，之后会少受攻击。而转而攻击朋友的猴子，只是得到了暂时满足，并不能得到未来免受攻击的保障。

Which suggests if you’re gonna beat on someone for payback, it should at least be a monkey’s uncle.

这意味着，如果你要报复某只猴子，至少得是他的叔叔。