研究人員驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)，小狼崽會叼東西

研究人員驚訝地發(fā)現(xiàn)，小狼崽會叼東西

Some dogs just love to play fetch. When you have the ball, they need you to throw it immediately so they can catch it.

有些狗就是喜歡玩接球游戲。當(dāng)你拿到球的時候，它們需要你馬上扔出去，這樣它們才能接住球。

But it's not just dogs that love this game. Researchers recently found that wolf puppies will also chase and return a ball, picking up on human cues on how to play fetch. Their findings were published in the journal iScience.

但不僅僅是狗喜歡這項(xiàng)運(yùn)動。研究人員最近發(fā)現(xiàn)，小狼崽也會追逐并回球，它們會根據(jù)人類的線索來玩接球游戲。他們的發(fā)現(xiàn)發(fā)表在《iScience》雜志上。

"When I saw the first wolf puppy retrieving the ball I literally got goose bumps," Christina Hansen Wheat of Stockholm University, Sweden, said in a statement. "It was so unexpected, and I immediately knew that this meant that if variation in human-directed play behavior exists in wolves, this behavior could have been a potential target for early selective pressures exerted during dog domestication."

瑞典斯德哥爾摩大學(xué)的克里斯蒂娜·漢森·惠特在一份聲明中說:“當(dāng)我看到第一只狼崽撿球時，我真的起了雞皮疙瘩。這太出乎意料了，我立刻意識到，這意味著，如果狼中存在以人為本的游戲行為的變異，那么這種行為可能會成為狗馴化過程中施加的早期選擇性壓力的潛在目標(biāo)。”

Hansen Wheat and her team stumbled upon the discovery during their research studying the differences between dogs and wolves to see how domestication impacts behavior. As part of their research, they raise litters of wolf and dog puppies and put them through various behavioral tests that are often used by breeders to see how puppies act in social situations, Hansen Wheat tells NPR.

漢森·惠特和她的團(tuán)隊(duì)在研究狗和狼的區(qū)別時偶然有了這個發(fā)現(xiàn)，他們想知道馴化是如何影響行為的。漢森·惠特告訴美國國家公共電臺(NPR)，作為研究的一部分，他們飼養(yǎng)了一窩狼和狗的幼犬，并讓它們接受各種行為測試，這些測試通常被飼養(yǎng)員用來觀察幼犬在社交場合的表現(xiàn)。

The role of domestication

馴化的作用

This wolf puppy named Flea was one of a litter that showed little interest in chasing a ball. (Photo: Christina Hansen Wheat)

During one of those tests, a person who had never been around the wolf puppies throws a tennis ball and encourages the puppies to go get it and bring it back.

在其中一次測試中，一個從未接觸過小狼崽的人扔出一個網(wǎng)球，鼓勵小狼崽去撿回來。

In tests with two earlier litters, the wolf puppies showed no interest in the balls, much less fetching them. But this time around, three of the 8-week-old wolf puppies were intrigued by the ball and returned it to strangers with a little encouragement.

在對兩窩較早出生的幼犬進(jìn)行的測試中，小狼崽對球沒有興趣，更不用說去取球了。但這一次，3只8周大的小狼崽對這個球很感興趣，給了陌生人一點(diǎn)鼓勵。

The discovery is surprising because researchers hypothesized that the abilities to pick up on cues given by people — like those they need to understand to play fetch — came about in dogs due to 15,000 years of domestication.

這一發(fā)現(xiàn)令人驚訝，因?yàn)檠芯咳藛T推測，狗狗之所以能夠識別人類給出的線索——比如它們需要理解的玩取物游戲的線索——是因?yàn)?5000年來人類對狗的馴化。

Seeing the behavior in wolf puppies can give us information about where the fetch behavior in dogs comes from, Hansen Wheat says. While it was surprising to see wolf puppies playing and connecting with people that way, she says it makes sense.

漢森·惠特說，觀察狼崽的行為可以讓我們了解狗的取物行為從何而來。雖然看到小狼崽以這種方式玩耍和與人交流令人驚訝，但她說這是有道理的。

"Wolf puppies showing human-directed behavior could have had a selective advantage in early stages of dog domestication," she says.

她說:“在狗的馴化早期階段，狼幼犬表現(xiàn)出的人為行為可能具有選擇性優(yōu)勢。”