What Animals Are Most Like People
什么动物和人类最像
once again we go to the mailbag. A listener writes:
大家又一次打开邮箱。一位听众写到
Dear A Moment of Science, Besides chimps, which animals do you think are the most like people?
亲爱的科学一刻，除去黑猩猩，你觉得哪种动物最像人类？
Its Prairie Dogs!
是草原狗！
Scientists have closely studied prairie dog chirps and found that theyre really complex.
科学家仔细研究了草原狗的叫声，发现这非常复杂。
You know how some animals have warning calls such as warning shrieks or yells that alert their group when a predator is nearby?
你了解当有捕食者挨近时，一些动物会发出警号信号譬如叫声或呼喊来警告同伴么？
Prairie dogs do this, too, but in a way thats impressively detailed. For example, they not only have specific chirps for different kinds of predators, but also for specific details about what the predators look like.
草原狗也有这种行为。而且在某种程度上，草原狗的具体行为让人印象深刻。比如，草原狗不只对特定的捕猎者有特定的叫声，对于捕猎者的外貌也有特定的细节描述。
Size, Shape, And Clothes!
高矮，体型和衣服!
Yes. In fact, theyd exchange information not only about your presence but about what you look like your size, shape, and the color of your clothes.
是的，事实上，他们不只交流你出现的信息，还会讨论你的高矮和体型，你衣服的颜色。
How Do Scientists Know?
科学家们是怎么样了解的？
They did a cool little experiment where they sent the same person into a prairie dog colony at different times, wearing different colored tee shirts. When they analyzed the animals alarm calls they found that they used the same ones for the persons size and shape, but different ones depending on the color of the tee shirt.
他们做了一个非常酷的小实验，在不一样的时间里，让同一个人穿着不同颜色的T恤进入草原狗的领地。当科学家们剖析动物的警觉信号时，他们发现动物用同样的叫声表示人的高矮和体型，但会依据T恤的颜色改变叫声。
And it speaks to the larger point that humans are not the only animals with a sophisticated language system. Ours may be the most complex, but its only one among many other, non human descriptive languages.
从更深层次的角度上说，人类不是唯一具备复杂语言系统的生物。大家的语言可能是最复杂的，但只不过很多其它非人类描述性语言中的一种。
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