亮色太高调？或许另有玄机
1
The striking bright blues, yellows, and oranges of poison dart frogs are a classic example of warning coloration, sending a message to predators to stay away.
箭毒蛙身上醒目的亮蓝色，黄色和橙色是警戒色的经典例子，给那些捕食者们传递保持距离的信号。
But somewhat counterintuitively, these conspicuous colors may be helping the frogs hide in plain sight, according to a new study.
不过有点跟直觉相反的是，据最新研究表明，这些显眼的色彩或许可以帮助这些青蛙躲过视线。
The dyeing poison frog (Dendrobates tinctorius) lives on the forest floor in the lowland tropical rainforests of South America’s Guiana Shield, an ancient geological formation underlying the northeastern coast and parts of Venezuela and Brazil.
这种花箭毒蛙（拉丁学名Dendrobates tinctorius）居住在南美圭亚那平原低地的热带雨林的地面层，这是在东北海岸和委内瑞拉和巴西附近远古时期形成的地形。
The frogs are blue-black with a bright yellow ring around their head and back, which may be broken or joined to form a figure eight. Like a fingerprint, the pattern is unique to each frog.
这种蛙蓝黑底，头背部带亮黄色环纹，该纹路有时会断开有时会连起来形成八字形。正如指纹一般，每只蛙的纹样都是独一无二的。
Predators generally learn that such brightly colored frogs are toxic and avoid them.
捕食者们大体知道这种亮色的蛙是有毒的，一般会避开它们。
But this doesn’t always work.
但有时这并不起作用。。
Naïve predators ignore the warning, whereas some birds and snakes seem to be able to eat poisonous frogs with few ill effects.
有些年幼的捕食者会忽略警戒色，而有些鸟和蛇类似乎可以吃掉毒蛙而症状很轻。
So researchers wondered whether poison dart frogs have another way of protecting themselves—camouflage.
于是研究员们想知道箭毒蛙是否有另一种保护自己的方法——伪装。
To find out, they first tested computational models of predator vision on images of the frogs.
为了找到答案，它们首先测试了捕食者对这种蛙的图像的视觉的电脑模型。
Their results suggested that although the amphibians are obvious at close range, their colors and patterns merge into the rainforest background as viewing distance increases.
他们的结果表明尽管这种两栖动物近看很显眼，不过从远处看时它们的颜色和纹样可以融合进雨林的大背景中。
To test those results, the scientists placed model frogs on different backgrounds in a French Guianan rainforest to see how wild predators reacted.
为了进一步测试结果，科学家们将这种蛙的模型放置在法属圭亚那雨林的不同背景中来看看野生捕食者反应如何。
Predators attacked frog models more often when they were placed atop an image of plain soil or a colored paper square, but less often when they were on the actual rainforest floor.
当它们被放在一片裸土或者彩色纸片上时，捕食者们更容易攻击它们，不过当它们位于真正的雨林地面上时反而更不容易被攻击。
And humans seem to fall for the trick, too: People who saw images of frogs in the rainforest took longer to spot the real frogs at a distance than a frog that had been altered so that it didn’t have the same colors and patterns.
而人类似乎也会落入这种陷阱中：那些看到雨林中的蛙图像的人们需要更久才能从远处看到真正的蛙，而那些颜色和纹样被改成不同于背景色的则更容易被找出来。
Together, this suggests that although dyeing poison frogs are highly visible at close range, from far away their colors blend together for the perfect rainforest camouflage, the researchers report this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
综上，这表明了尽管箭毒蛙近看非常醒目，但从远处看时它们的颜色会跟雨林形成完美伪装色，研究员们在本月的《美国科学院论文集》上进行了发表。
The researchers speculate that the frog’s pattern is made up of a specific ratio and distribution of colors to give it the best of both worlds.
研究员们推测这种蛙的纹样是由特定的颜色的比率和分布组成的，这样才能让它在水陆两个世界都能伪装。
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