昆虫举重冠军——粪金龟
World's Strongest Insect
by Lauren Schenkman 胡德良 译
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The insect world is famous for its Olympian power-lifters, but the horned dung beetle (Onthophagus Taurus) takes the gold. A mere 10 millimeters long, the beetle can pull up to 1141 times its own body weight-the equivalent of an average man lifting two fully-loaded 18-wheeler trucks. That makes it a third stronger than the strongest known insect (the rhinoceros beetle), hundreds of times stronger than ants, and just a shade weaker than the world's strongest animal, a tiny yet tenacious mite known as Archegozetes longisetosus. In a study published online tomorrow in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers report measuring the Herculean feat by gluing a cotton thread to the beetles' hard wing-cases, stringing the thread across a pulley, and tying it to a miniature bucket, to which they added drops of water. The scientists believe the beetle evolved such brawn because brute strength is the deciding factor in males' competition over females, which is waged as head-to-head pushing matches in dung tunnels. |
昆虫界以奥运举重选手众多而著称，但是有角粪金龟摘得桂冠。尽管粪金龟的身体只有10毫米长，但它能够举起的重量为其自身重量的1141倍，相当于一个普通人能够举起两辆满载货物的18轮卡车，这使得它比已知最强壮的昆虫（犀角金龟）还要强壮三分之一，比蚂蚁强壮数百倍，仅仅比世界上最强壮的动物略微逊色一点，那种动物是一种微小而强壮的螨，学名叫做Archegozetes longisetosus。明天，发表在《皇家学会学报B辑》在线版上的一项研究报道说，研究人员测量大力士技艺表演的办法是这样的：他们将一根棉线粘在金龟坚硬的翅膀壳上，使棉线绕过一个滑轮之后，系在一个微型水桶上，在水桶里再加入一些水滴。科学家们认为，这种甲虫进化出如此强壮的肌肉是因为强大力量是雄性通过竞争来获得雌性青睐的决定性因素，竞争是通过在粪道中进行头顶头比赛而展开的。 |
