北大西洋的露脊鲸面对相同的刺激能产生不同的声音，而不是重复一模一样的反应。

撰文\播音：贾森·G·戈德曼（Jason G. Goldman）

翻译：邱燕宁

审校：张清越

As animals grow, the sounds they make change. But some sounds continue to change, even after an animal matures. That's true for humans, and now it turns out to be true for North Atlantic right whales, too.

动物发出的声音会随着生长而改变，甚至一些声音在动物长大成年后也会继续变化。对人类来说如此，对北大西洋鲸鱼来说也是如此。

A member of the baleen family of whales, the endangered North Atlantic right whales spend most of their time along the eastern coast of North America from Canada's Bay of Fundy south to Florida.

须鲸科的濒危物种北大西洋露脊鲸大部分时间都生活在北美东海岸，从加拿大的芬迪湾到佛罗里达。

Syracuse University biologist Holly Root-Gutteridge analyzed recordings of whale calls to see if researchers could use those sounds to identify individual whales. In an audio program on a computer screen, a call has a particular shape.

雪城大学生物学家Holly Root-Gutteridge对鲸鱼的叫声进行了分析，以确定研究人员是否可以利用这些声音来识别鲸鱼个体。在计算机屏幕上的音频程序中，鲸鱼的一次发声具有特定的形状。

"Staring at these calls all day, I started to notice they were changing. And then we looked a little bit harder at the data, and realized that they weren't just changing from being a little tiny baby to being a fair sized adult…but that they kept changing over time."

“整天盯着这些叫声使我注意到它们在变化。在我们更仔细地观察了这些数据之后，我们意识到它们并不仅仅是从一个小婴儿变成一个正常大小的成年个体，而是他们可以随着时间的推移持续改变。”

Root-Gutteridge and her colleagues rounded up seventeen years' worth of whale recordings. In all, they gathered nearly a thousand calls from 49 individual whales between the ages of one month and 37 years.

Root-Gutteridge和她的同事们收集了17年的鲸鱼录音。他们总共收集了来自49头鲸鱼的近一千个叫声，年龄在一个月到37岁之间。

Like many other animals, the calls of the infants were both shorter and less structured than those of the adults. Mature whales produced calls that were clearer, longer, and more structurally complex. But the researchers also found that the calls continued to develop long after the whales reached sexual and physical maturity.

Like many other animals, the calls of the infants were both shorter and less structured than those of the adults. Mature whales produced calls that were clearer, longer, and more structurally complex. But the researchers also found that the calls continued to develop long after the whales reached sexual and physical maturity.

和许多其他动物一样，婴儿的叫声比成年个体的更短，结构也更凌乱。成年的鲸鱼发出的叫声更清晰、更持久、结构更复杂。但研究人员也发现，在鲸鱼达到性和生理成熟后，它们的叫声持续发生改变。

"Instead of just changing from the age of 0 to 15 when they're pretty much full-grown, they kept changing after the age of 15 and just kept going throughout their whole lives. Compared to say, a bird, where usually they get to their full-grown state and then they don't change these calls."

“它们不是只从0岁到15岁成长的过程中叫声发生变化，而是在完全长大了（15岁之后），整个一生中持续改变。” 相比其它动物，例如鸟类，它们在达到成熟状态后将不会再改变自己的叫声。

The results were published in the journal Animal Behaviour. [Holly Root-Gutteridge, et al., A lifetime of changing calls: North Atlantic right whales, Eubalaena glacialis, refine call production as they age]

研究结果发表在《动物行为学》杂志上。

"Well, it means that instead of having a completely instinctive reaction where they always make the same call in response to the same stimuli—a reflex, basically—that the whales are capable of changing what they're calling and how they're communicating. Which means that they may be thinking about what they call."

“这意味着面对相同的刺激，鲸鱼能够改变它们的呼声和沟通方式，而不是总是发出条件反射一般相同的本能呼声。也就是说，它们可能会思考他们的呼叫内容。”

In other words, understanding the calls of North Atlantic right whales might shed some light on the minds of North Atlantic right whales.

换句话说，理解北大西洋露脊鲸的叫声可能会对理解这一物种的思想有帮助。

In the meantime, scientists announced recently that they did not observe any newly born North Atlantic right whales this year—bad news for an already imperiled species. With luck, the work of biologists like Root-Gutteridge might offer insights that help us we try to help them survive.

与此同时，科学家最近宣布，他们今年没有观察到任何新出生的北大西洋露脊鲸，这对已经濒临灭绝的物种来说是个坏消息。幸运的是，像Root-Gutteridge这样的生物学家的工作可能会为我们保护他们提供帮助。