Animal

Behavior
动物行为
Animal Behavior
动物行为复杂多样，各种行为都是动物对复杂环境的适应（adaption）表现，帮助动物更好的生
存繁衍。托福中涉及到的动物行为主要可以分为：1）觅食行为（foraging behavior），2）栖息地选择
（habitat selection），3）繁衍行为（reproductive behavior），4）进化（evolution）。不同的动物会有不同的
行为，这些行为有简单的也有复杂的。按获得途径可分为先天性行为（innate behavior）和学习行为
（learned behavior）。
Ethology 动物行为学
Ethology is the scientific and objective study of animal
behaviour, usually with a focus on behaviour under natural
conditions, and viewing behaviour as an evolutionarily adaptive
trait. Throughout history, different naturalists have studied
aspects of animal behaviour. Ethology has its scientific roots in
the work of Charles Darwin (1809-1882) and of American and
German ornithologists （鸟类学家）of the late 19th and early 20th
century. Ethology is a rapidly growing field. Since the dawn of
the 21st century researchers have re-examined and reached new
conclusions in many aspects of animal communication,
emotions, culture, learning and sexuality that the scientific
community long thought it understood.
Foraging Behavior
觅食行为，包括搜寻，捕食（predation），处理，摄取和存储食物几个阶段。是指动物从外界环
境获取营养物质（nutrition），以维持新陈代谢和个体生存（survive）的一种重要行为，也是其他各种
行为的基础。

Foraging is searching for wild food resources. It affects an animal's fitness because it plays an
important role in an animal's ability to survive and reproduce.
 TPO 7 Lecture 2:

Professor: As Carol said, bats use it for navigation and orientation… and what else?
Mike?

Student: Well, finding food is always important—and I guess not becoming food for
other animals.

Professor: Right, on both counts.Avoiding other predators—and locating prey—uh,

typically insects that fly around at night.
教授:正如卡洛尔说的，蝙蝠用回声定位来 导航和定位。还有别的么？麦克。

学生:呃，觅食是很重要的，我猜是不想成 为其他动物的猎物。

教授:是的。两个方面都 对。躲避捕猎者，定位猎物，昆虫基本都在夜 间飞行。

Habitat selection
栖息地选择 （habitat selection），包括迁徙
（migration）。栖息地是指物理和生物的环境因素的总和
，包括光线、湿度、筑巢地点等，所有这些因素一起构成
适宜于动物居住的某一特殊场所。它能够提供食物和防
御捕食者等条件。各种动物按照自己喜爱的环境条件来
选择栖息地。

In ecology, a habitat is the type of natural

environment in which a particular species of organism
lives. It is characterized by both physical and biological
features. A species' habitat is those places where it can find
food, shelter, protection and mates for reproduction.
 TPO 8 Lecture 1:
With active habitat selection, an organism is able to physically select where to live and
breed. And because an animal's breeding habitat is so important, we'd expect animal species to
have developed preferences for particular types of habitats, places where their offspring have the
best chance of survival.

And as we’ve discussed, there are some key elements that a habitat must contain:food,
obviously. Water; and it’s got to have the right climate; and spaces for physical protection.

但是如果是积极的栖息地选择，生物就会在生理意 义上选择它们生长繁殖的地方。并且因 为动物

的繁殖栖息地非常重要，我 们认为动物物种倾向于选择使它们的后代有最好的生存几率的地方。

正像我们讨论的，对于一个栖息地，必 须包含一些关键因素:很显然有食物、水，然后
还有合适的气候，以及自我保 护的空间。
Reproductive Behavior
繁衍行为是生物为延续种族所进行的产生后代的生
理过程，即生物产生新的个体的过程。包括识别、占有空
间、求偶、交配、孵卵、 对后代的哺育等一系列的复 杂行
为。通常指配偶形成和交配活 动的行为模式，有的科学家
把动物的领地行为、筑巢行为、孵卵活动、双亲照料和其
他同繁殖有联系的行为均归入其中。

Reproduction (or procreation or breeding) is the

biological process by which new individual organisms –
"offspring" – are produced from their "parents".
Reproduction is a fundamental feature of all known life;
each individual organism exists as the result of reproduction.
 TPO 11 Lecture 1: distraction displays

Now if you are a bird, and there was a predator around, what are you going to do? Well, for
one thing, you are going to try to attract as little attention as possible, right? Because if the
predator doesn't know you are there, it's not going to try to eat you. But sometimes, certain
species of birds do the exact opposite. When the predator approaches, they do their best to attract
the attention of that predator.Now why would they do that? Well, they do that to draw the
predator away from their nests, away from their eggs or their young birds.

现在，如果我们是鸟，而周围正有一个捕食者者，我 们会做什么？首先，你会想要尽量不引起它
的注意，对吗？因为捕猎者如果不知道你在那儿，就不会 试着吃掉你。但有些 鸟类的行为恰恰相反。当
捕食者靠近的 时候，它们想方设法去吸引它的注意力。 为什么它们会这么做？它们这么做，
是为了将捕食者从它 们的巢和里面的幼 鸟吸引走 。
Evolution
种群中可通过遗传物质从一代传给下一代的变化被认为是进化。生物进化可能是细微或显著
的，可以依据时间长短与差异程度，分成“微观演化”（微演化）与“宏观演化”（广演化）。微观演化指
几个世代中，基因频率小范围的变化，例如现今世界各地人类的差异。宏观演化指长时间的演化过
程，例如人类与灭绝祖先的关系。
Evolution is change in the heritable characteristics of biological populations over successive
generations. These characteristics are the expressions of genes that are passed on from parent to
offspring during reproduction. Different characteristics tend to exist within any given population as a
result of mutation, genetic recombination and other sources of genetic variation. Evolution occurs when
evolutionary processes such as natural selection (including sexual selection) and genetic drift act on this
variation, resulting in certain characteristics becoming more common or rare within a
population.
 TPO 20 Lecture 4:

And to survive in that sort of environment, animals have to adapt ... to evolve in response to
their surroundings. As you'll recall, an adaptation is any feature- uh, physical or behavioral
feature-of a species that helps it survive and reproduce. And in adapting to extreme climates-like
Maine in the wintertime- animals can evolve in pretty interesting ways...
So one of its adaptations is basically camouflage.In other words, its coat- its fur-turns from
brown in the summer to white in the winter,which makes it harder for the hare's predators to see
it against the white snow.
要在那样的环境下生活，动物们必须得进化... 随着周围环境的变化而进化。物种的进化，即在它
们的行为或肢体上为在某个环境下生存和繁衍做出的改 变。为了适应极端的气候地 带的生存环境，譬
如缅因州的冬天， 动物们以各式各样的方式进化，其中有一些非常有趣。
所以，它最基本的一 项进化就是伪装。换句话说，它的毛色，从夏天的灰色 变成了冬天的
白色，这使得捕食者很 难从雪地里找到它。
Snowshoe hare
 TPO 10 Lecture 1:
We know whales are mammals and that they evolved from land creatures.So the mystery is
figuring out how they became ocean dwellers. Because until recently there was no fossil record of
what we call "the missing link", that is evidence of species that show the transition between
land-dwelling mammals and today's whales. Fortunately, some recent fossil discoveries have
made the picture a little bit clearer. For example, a few years back in Pakistan, they found a skull
of a wolf-like creature.It's about fifty million years old. Scientists had seen this wolf-like creature
before, but this skull was different. The ear area of the skull had characteristics seen only in
aquatic mammals, specifically whales.
我们知道鲸鱼是哺乳动物，而且他们从陆地生物进化而来。所以需要解开的 谜团是他们怎样变成
海洋生物的。因 为至今为止，我们还没有发现所谓关于二者联系消失的化石 证据。这是很重要的证据来
证明陆上生物到鲸鱼的进化。幸运的是最近一些化石 证据能使这个“进化图”稍显清晰了。比如几
年前在巴基斯坦， 发现了一具像狼一 样的头盖骨距今五千万年了。 科学家以为这和以前的化石一
样，但事实上，它有所不同。在它耳 朵区域的头骨是有水声哺乳 动物的特点，特 别像鲸。