每日一翻：Lemur Latrine Trees Serve As Community Bulletin Boards

People have been leaving messages on bathroom walls for thousands of years. Just google “ancient Roman bathroom graffiti.” But we’re not the only ones to use latrines for information exchange—as two German researchers have confirmed after hundreds of hours watching lemurs pee and poop. For science.

远在几千年前，人们就有过在厕所的墙上留言的做法。你只需要Google一下“古罗马厕所涂鸦”就可以知道。但是两位德国研究者经过对狐猴大小便几百个小时的观察后发现，我们不是唯一的利用厕所来交换信息的物种。这只是为了科学。

Primatologists Iris Dröscher and Peter Kappeler concentrated on seven sets of pair-bonded members of a species called white-footed sportive lemurs, at a nature reserve in southern Madagascar. Their report is in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. [Iris Dröscher & Peter M. Kappeler Maintenance of familiarity and social bonding via communal latrine use in a solitary primate (Lepilemur leucopus)]

在马达加斯加南部的一个自然保护区，灵长类动物学家Iris Dröscher和Peter Kappeler研究了七组由一种名叫白足鼬狐猴的物种雌雄成对组成的小组。他们的报告被发表在《行为生态学和社会生物学》期刊上。

Many animals use the same spots repeatedly to do their business, primates in particular. For these lemurs, a specific tree becomes the urine and feces focal point. And because chemical compounds in their waste transmit information, the so-called latrine tree becomes like a bulletin board to post messages for the rest of the community.

许多动物在相同的地方做它们的事，尤其是灵长类动物。对于这些狐猴，一棵特殊的树就成为了它们大小便的焦点。因为他们排泄的化合物可以传递信息，所谓的厕所树也就变成了他们发布信息的公告牌。

Based on their 1,097 hours of observations, the researchers conclude that urine and glandular secretions left on the tree trunk are the primary message vehicles. Feces mostly just collects on the ground.

基于他们1097个小时的观察，研究者们得出结论：留在树干上的排泄物是基本的信息传递工具。粪便大部分只集中在地上。

Some urine telegrams are probably signals from a particular lemur to the neighbors that he or she is around. But male lemurs upped their latrine visits when potential competitors for females came into their home area. So the frequent chemical messages left on the tree probably say in that case, “Buzz off, buddy, she’s with me.” In lemur.

一些尿液发出的信号很可能是来自一只特殊狐猴发送给它附近邻居的信号。但是当潜在的雌狐猴竞争者进入它们的领地，雄狐猴会增加它们的厕所。所以狐猴中频繁的化学信号很可能是说：“哥们儿，赶紧离开，她和我在一起了”。

—Steve Mirsky