科學家在Twitter上發(fā)現(xiàn)的新物種

科學家在Twitter上發(fā)現(xiàn)的新物種

Scientists in Denmark have harnessed social media to discover a new type of parasitic fungus.

丹麥科學家利用社交媒體發(fā)現(xiàn)了一種新型寄生真菌。

Researchers from the University of Copenhagen’s Natural History Museum made the find after spotting an image of a millipede that was shared on Twitter.

哥本哈根大學自然歷史博物館的研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)了一張在推特上分享的千足蟲圖片后，做出了這一發(fā)現(xiàn)。

Biologist and associate professor Ana Sofia Reboleira of the National Natural History Museum spotted the image when she was scrolling through her feed, according to a statement released by the University. “There, she stumbled upon a photo of a North American millipede shared by her U.S. colleague Derek Hennen of Virginia Tech.”

國家自然歷史博物館的生物學家兼副教授安娜·索非亞·雷博雷拉在瀏覽推特時發(fā)現(xiàn)了這張照片。“在那里，她偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)了一張北美千足蟲的照片，這張照片是她的美國同事、弗吉尼亞理工大學的德里克·亨寧(Derek Hennen)分享的。”

Reboleira’s interest was piqued by some tiny dots on the millipede. “I could see something looking like fungi on the surface of the millipede. Until then, these fungi had never been found on American millipedes,” she explained, in the statement. “So, I went to my colleague and showed him the image. That’s when we ran down to the museum’s collections and began digging.”

雷博雷拉的興趣被千足蟲身上的一些小點激起了。“我在千足蟲的表面看到類似真菌的東西。在此之前，這些真菌從未在美國千足蟲身上發(fā)現(xiàn)，”她在聲明中解釋道。“所以，我去找我的同事，給他看了照片。就在那時，我們跑到博物館的藏品中，開始挖掘。”

Working with her colleague Henrik Enghoff, Reboleira discovered several specimens of the same fungus on a number of millipede specimens in the museum’s enormous collection. The fungus had never been documented before.

雷博萊拉與她的同事亨利克恩霍夫(Henrik Enghoff)合作，在博物館大量收藏的千足蟲標本上發(fā)現(xiàn)了同一種真菌的幾個標本。這種真菌以前從未被記錄過。

The fungus was given a Latin name that acknowledges the role played by social media in its discovery – Troglomyces twitteri.

這種真菌用一個拉丁名字命名，以感謝社交媒體在其發(fā)現(xiàn)過程中所發(fā)揮的作用——Troglomyces twitteri。

The scientific community is no stranger to knowledge sharing on social media. In 2017, for example, a strange fanged “sea creature” that washed up on a Texas beach in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey quickly went viral after images were posted on Twitter.

科學界對社交媒體上的知識共享并不陌生。例如，2017年，在颶風哈維(Harvey)過后，一只長著奇怪尖牙的“海洋生物”在得克薩斯州的海灘上被沖了上來，在Twitter上發(fā)布了這些圖片后，這只“海洋生物”迅速走紅。

The creature was eventually identified by experts as a fangtooth snake-eel or tusky eel.

專家最終確認這種生物為尖牙蛇鰻或尖牙鰻。