自然科学之斑马纹的奥秘

1、 徐曼徐曼 冯娟冯娟 杨晶杨晶 王康王康 Natural Sciencewhat is your feeling when seeing the phenomenon?dizzy!ContentsWarming-upQuestion: Do you know why zebra(斑马) are striped? Or do you have a better understanding of the function of stripes ? -just for beauty ? . SuppositionTitle Why zebra are striped? .predators migh

2、t get dizzy when watching a herd of stripes gallop by.stripes are a sophisticated form of flyrepellent.（防蝇器）Horse sensejust an elaborate insect repellent(驱虫器)camouflage（保护色）a way to display an individuals fitnessEvidenceEvidence1I Investigatorsnvestigators：Gabor Horvath of Eotvos University盖博 霍瓦特艾奥特

3、沃斯大学2ArticleArticle：in the Journal of Experimental Biology （实验生物学报）Experimental progressThe original suggestion was that stripes repel tsetse flies.原本的猜想是说条纹是为了避免舌蝇。These insectscarry sleeping sickness, which is as much a bane of ungulates as it is of people.这些小昆虫带有昏睡病，对人类和有蹄类动物同样致害。Result：But tsets

4、es are not the only dipteran foes of zebra 但是舌蝇并非是斑马唯一的长着翅膀的敌人，since they are rarely found in the meadows of Hungary,因为舌蝇在匈牙利的草原上并不常见。Experience progressDr Horvath plumped for studying analmost equally obnoxious alternative: the horsefly.Horvath转而研究一种同样恼人的替代品：马蝇。Horseflies, too, transmit disease.马蝇也

5、同样传播疾病。They also bite incessantly, thus keeping grazing beasts from their dinner.它们属于寄生式叮咬，因此使得这些动物进食减少。Result：Indeed, previous research has shown that fly attacks on horses and cattle reduce their body fat and milk production.的确有研究表明被马蝇袭击的马和牛出现了身体脂肪和产奶量下降的现象。Experience progressObject: Object: inani

6、mateobjects(非生命体)-Actual zebra are hard to experiment on because of moving around and swishing their tails.Color:Color: uniformly dark or uniformly light and stripes of various widths(black horse, white horse,striped horse )Experimental progressprogress: Some were painted uniformly dark or uniformly

7、 light.一些实验对象被涂成纯白色或者纯黑色，and some had stripes of various widths.还有一些则被涂成宽度各异的条纹图案。Some were plastic trays filled with salad oil.其中有些是充满色拉油的塑料架子。Some were glue-covered boards. And some were actual models of zebra.一些是胶合纸板做的。还有一些是真实的斑马。They put these objects in a field infested with horseflies and coun

8、ted the number of insects they trapped.他们把这些实验对象放到一个充满马蝇的场地，然后计算被吸引的马蝇数目。Experimental progressConclusion:Their first discovery was that stripes attracted fewer flies than solid,uniform colours.他们第一个发现是条纹的比纯色的吸引的马蝇少。As intriguingly, though, they also found that the least attractive pattern of stripes

9、 was precisely those of the sort of width found on zebra hides.然而，耐人寻味的是他们还发现吸引力最小的条纹花式正是斑马身上的条纹样式。Zebra stripes do, therefore, seem to repel horseflies.因此，斑马的条纹看起来真的能够防马蝇。The truth But Dr Horvath thinks it might be related to a horseflysability to see polarised light,但是Horvath博士认为这可能与马蝇识别偏振光的能力有关，

10、which imposes a sense of horizontal andvertical on an image.偏振光是从水平和垂直方向打在画面上的。 Horseflies are known to prefer horizontal polarisedlight.众所周知马蝇偏向于水平偏振光。 Possibly, the mostly vertical stripes on a zebra confuse the flys tinybrain and thus stop it seeing the animal.所以极有可能是斑马身上垂直的条纹迷惑了马蝇的小脑袋，因此阻碍了马蝇发现斑

11、马。 Have you heard tsetse flies(舌蝇) and horseflies before? -Maybe not or just a little .舌蝇舌蝇，又叫采采蝇，是非洲的吸血昆虫，全属约21种，能传播人类的睡眠病以及家畜的类似疾病非洲锥虫病。舌蝇以人类、家畜及野生猎物的血为食。舌蝇分布广泛，多栖息于人类聚居地及撒哈拉以南某些地区的农业地带 摘要摘要：在非洲大陆舌蝇从不叮斑马，一旦被舌蝇叮咬就可能染上“昏睡病”发烧、疼痛、神经紊乱，直至死亡。科学家研究后发现，舌蝇的视觉很特别，一般只会被颜色一致的大块面积所吸引马蝇：马蝇：成虫比一般的蝇大。头大，身体表面生有细毛，像蜜蜂。口器退化，不摄取食物。多生活在野外。卵产在马、驴、骡等的毛上，孵出的幼虫被动物舔毛时带入体内而寄生在胃里。马蝇是种害虫，在幼虫阶段它就寄生在动物身上，有时也寄生在人身上