蚂蚁虽小，但方向感却十足!

较难

高中二年级

说明文

社会

蚂蚁也是左撇子么？科学研究表明蚂蚁在做不同事情的时候也有方向的偏好。它们向左转是想寻找巢穴，而向右转则是要寻找食物。

Every human has a strong preference when choosing which hand to write with, and even crows have even been found to have a favored side when using their beak as a tool. Why ants may have this bias for the left remains unknown although biologist Edmund Hunt, who was involved in the University of Bristol study.

在用哪只手写字的选择上，人们通常有很强的偏好；即使是乌鸦在用喙的时候，使用那一边，也是有偏好的。参加布里斯托大学研究项目的生物学家艾德蒙得·亨特说：为什么蚂蚁偏向于使用左边的身体部位还不知道。

In the study, ant colonies were placed in a large square Petri dish, which acted as a “nest”, measuring 23cm by 23cm. The colony’s nest entrance was opposite that of an unknown nest. The unknown nest was darker than the starting nest - making it more attractive to the ants.

研究结果显示，克隆蚂蚁被放在一个充当窝的边长为23厘米的方形培养皿中，蚂蚁所在培养皿的入口处正对着一个未知培养皿，未知培养皿的颜色比蚂蚁所在培养皿的颜色要深，这就使得未知培养皿对蚂蚁更有吸引力。

Scientists stimulated exploration of the unknown nest in the experiment by destroying the starting nest. After ants had explored and exited the new nest, they were removed to a separate holding dish until the end of the experiment to prevent them from participating in a second trial. After each ant exploration, a new wall was put in place to prevent the accumulation of ant pheromones- chemical messengers - that could affect an ant’s choice of direction.

实验的时候，科学家们会破坏掉蚂蚁所在的窝，以刺激蚂蚁去探寻新的窝。在蚂蚁探索发现新的窝并为之感到兴奋之后，它们被捉到了另一个窝中，这是为了避免他们继续探寻新的窝。每只蚂蚁探寻完后，就有一堵新的墙被设置起来，这是为了避免重复计算，化学物质会影响蚂蚁在方向上的选择。

A directional choice for left or right was determined if an ant remained within a body’s width of the wall; otherwise its choice was recorded as “other”. In the experiment the ants mostly chose to turn left, as opposed to right, when exploring the new nest.

如果蚂蚁与墙的距离在其身体的长度以内，蚂蚁对于左右的选择是一定的。否则，它们的选择就会被记录为“其他”。试验中，在探寻新的窝的时候，蚂蚁多选择了左转，而不是右转。