英語聽力文摘504 螞蟻的陰謀

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螞蟻的陰謀

Don: Hey,ants’lives are full of intrigue. Take slave-making ants. They invade other ants’ nests, kill some of the adults, and then steal the larvae and take them back to their own nests.

The larvae learn who they belong to by smell, so the slave-making ants get them while they’re young so they can turn them into slave-making workers who then go off to raid other colonies.

There's an ant species called Temnothorax minutissimus that is all queens and no workers. Talk about wacky hijinx...

Ya?l: But Don,do the queens need the workers to forage for food and do general antchores?

D: They do. That's why this extremely rare species baffles scientists.Like slave-making ants, these ants are parasites that infiltrate other ants’colonies. But unlike slave- making ants, the Temnothorax minutissimus queens somehow do so without killing the host queen and without all the bloodshed. And for some reason, the hosts put up with it and rear the visiting queens' eggs along with their own.

Many parasitic relationships are harmful to the hosts, like rabies or malaria and anthrax. So studying T. minutissimus and their interactions with their hosts could give scientists a fuller understanding of parasite- host interaction.

Don：嘿，螞蟻的生命中充滿了陰謀。拿使用奴隸的螞蟻來說，他們?nèi)肭制渌浵伒某惭?，殺死一些成年螞蟻，然后把幼蟲偷回到自己的巢穴。

幼蟲通過嗅覺來確定自己隸屬于誰，所以冠奴蟻就會離開在去入侵攻擊其它“殖民地”。

有一類名為Temnothorax minutissimus的螞蟻，它們?nèi)际?ldquo;老大”，沒有奴隸。拿古怪的hijinx來說...

Ya?l：但是Don，這些螞蟻王需要奴隸去搜尋食物，做一些日常事務嗎?

D：需要。這就是這種極罕見的螞蟻讓科學家們所困惑的。跟冠奴蟻一樣，這類螞蟻也是一種潛入其它螞蟻殖民地的寄生生物。但跟冠奴蟻不一樣的是，Temnothorax minutissimus王們不知怎么的(在入侵時)卻不會殺死(入侵巢穴的)螞蟻王，也不會進行大殺戮。而且，因為某種原因，(被入侵巢穴的)螞蟻還能接受造訪螞蟻王們的卵與自己的卵放在一起。

許多寄生關系對(被入侵)螞蟻來說是有害的，就像狂犬病，瘧疾以及炭疽一樣。所以，研究Temnothorax minutissimus以及其對(被入侵)螞蟻的作為可以讓科學家更全面的理解入侵螞蟻與被入侵螞蟻的關系。