You might not guess it, but this Alcon blue butterfly is a parasite whose offspring will live highly unusual lives. She lays pinhead-sized eggs on a wildflower and is off.
知道吗?爱尔康蓝蝶其实是寄生虫, 其后代过着非同寻常的生活。 她会在野花上产下针头大的卵然后飞走。
The first tiny caterpillar hatches a few days later. After two weeks living within a flower bud, he embarks on a high-risk operation that will require infiltrating a densely guarded fortress undercover. He secretes a thread of silk and descends to the ground. Here, he's more vulnerable than ever, but he holds still and waits. His descent perfectly coincides with the peak foraging hours of the nearby red ant colony.
几天后,第一只小毛虫孵化了。 在花蕾中生活两周后, 毛虫会展开一项高风险的行动, 就是潜入一座守卫严密的秘密堡垒。 他吊着分泌的一缕丝线降落在地面。 此刻,虽然生命岌岌可危,他仍静待着。 他的垂落时间点完美对应 附近红蚁群的觅食高峰时段。
Soon enough, a worker ant encounters the caterpillar. She inspects his cuticle with her sensitive antennae and picks up on key chemical cues that she uses to recognize her kin. This is all part of the caterpillar's disguise. The worker picks him up and reverses course.
很快,一只工蚁遇到了毛虫。 她使用敏锐的触角检测他的角质层, 找出了用以识别亲属的关键化学线索。 但这全都是毛虫的伪装。 工蚁把他抱起来往回走。
Indeed, the caterpillar doesn't battle his way into the fortress. No— he wouldn't stand a chance. He's shepherded in because the ant is treating him like one of her colony's own larvae. They pass legions of ants poised to attack invaders and enter the intricately architected, subterranean nest, which is sheltered, moist, and stockpiled with resources. If the caterpillar's mimicry didn't work, he might have been left for dead or taken as food himself. Instead, the ant places the caterpillar in the nursery, among the colony's own cherished brood.
的确,毛虫不会用武力进入堡垒, 否则——他连大门都碰不着。 之所以能被带进堡垒, 是因为蚂蚁把他当成自家幼虫。 他们穿过严阵以待的蚂蚁军团, 进入架构错综复杂的地下巢穴, 那里环境安全且潮湿,资源储备充足。 如果毛虫的模仿伪装不起作用, 他可能就会被丢弃至死或被吃掉。 现在,蚂蚁把毛虫放在了育儿室中, 这是蚁群珍爱的巢穴。
Here, he produces sugary secretions that the worker ants feed from. The nurse ants dote upon him, regurgitating food into his mouth frequently. But he has a voracious appetite. He arches his body in a begging posture to obtain more food, and, every now and then, eats one of his own nestmates. The caterpillar also does things that the ant larvae can't: he makes noises that sound a lot like those emitted by the ant queens. In effect, he signals that he's royalty and should be prioritized over the actual ant larvae. And that's exactly what happens. The nurse ants feed him extra. And when a wild boar causes part of the nest to collapse, the ants rescue the caterpillar first.
他在这里分泌含糖分泌物, 工蚁以此为食。 护士蚁溺爱他, 频繁将食物反刍到他嘴里。 但是他的食量惊人, 他会乞讨般拱起身以讨取更多食物, 并不时吃掉自己的巢友。 毛虫还能做蚂蚁幼虫做不到的事情: 他能发出很像蚂蚁女王的叫声, 表示自己是皇室成员, 应该被优先照顾。 事实也正是如此。 护士蚁会帮他加饭, 当有野猪弄塌部分巢穴时, 蚂蚁会先救出毛虫。
While members of the ant colony suffer reduced survival rates because of the burdensome caterpillar, he passes the harsh winter living like royalty. Come June, he's stored up plenty of nutrients to make a dramatic transformation. He forms his chrysalis, and for three weeks, he uses a tooth-and-comb organ to create more queen-like acoustic vibrations, attracting workers to clean him. Then, at dawn one day, he emerges an adult butterfly. Wings still wet, his body easily fits through the gallery opening, and finally, 11 months after being taken in, he basks in the sun and begins searching for a mate. When he dies about a week later, he'll have spent the vast majority of his life in the realm of the ants.
虽然因为麻烦的毛虫, 害得蚂蚁群的存活率降低, 他却像皇室成员一样轻松度过严冬。 到了六月,他已储存了大量养分, 用以实施其巨大的蜕变。 他形成自己的蝶蛹,在三周时间里, 用牙梳器官产生更多女王般的声学振动, 吸引工蚁清洁他的躯体。 然后,在一个黎明, 他突然蜕变为成熟的蝴蝶。 翅膀依然湿润, 他的身轻松穿越坑道口。 终于,被收留在蚁穴 11 个月后, 他重沐阳光之下,开始寻找伴侣。 当他一周后死亡时, 他一生的绝大部分都在蚂蚁王国度过。
The Alcon blue is one of as many as 200 parasitic butterfly species, all of which target ants. Sometimes, multiple caterpillars inhabit the same ant colony at once. Some stay for almost two years. But researchers are still parsing these complex relationships. For instance, certain ants guard Japanese oakblue caterpillars from predators and consume the sugary secretions the caterpillars produce in return. But it turns out that this sweet concoction isn't a simple form of mutual assistance. Instead, chemicals in the secretions actually manipulate the ants' behavior, inhibiting their movement and making them more protective and aggressive caterpillar guards.
爱尔康蓝是多达 200 种 寄生蝴蝶中的一种, 而所有寄生蝴蝶都以蚂蚁为寄生目标。 有时,多种毛虫 同时居住在一个蚁穴中。 有些会住上近两年。 但研究人员仍在解析这些复杂的关系。 例如,某些蚂蚁会保护 日本紫灰蝶毛虫免受捕食者侵害, 毛虫为他们产生含糖分泌物作为回报。 到头来发现,这种甜蜜的配合 并非简单形式的互助。 分泌物含有操纵蚂蚁行为的化学成分, 抑制蚂蚁的行动, 使其在毛虫卫护上更具保护性和侵略性。
Despite these masterful manipulations, parasitic butterflies are vulnerable themselves. They're also the targets of parasitism. Even within their adopted, high-security hideaways, parasitoid wasps sometimes track the caterpillars down and lay eggs on their bodies. When the wasp larvae hatch, they consume the caterpillars alive. And because their life cycles consist of such a complex choreography involving specific plants and ants, small environmental changes can affect their populations. One parasitic butterfly species actually went extinct in the UK in 1979, before being reintroduced a few years later. They've since rebounded alongside efforts to restore the meadow habitats their host ants require to thrive— helping preserve these riveting relationships and the astonishing adaptations they inspire.
尽管有这些巧妙的操纵, 但寄生蝴蝶本身仍很脆弱。 他们也是别虫寄生的目标。 即使在高度安全、被收养的藏身处, 寄生蜂有时也会追踪毛虫, 并在他们身上产卵。 当黄蜂幼虫孵化时, 他们会活活地吞噬毛虫。 而且,由于其生命周期编排复杂, 当中涉及特定植物和蚂蚁, 因此环境微小变化也会影响他们的生存。 1979 年,一种寄生蝴蝶在英国灭绝, 几年后才重新被引入。 他们开始繁衍生息, 伴随着恢复草地栖息地的努力, 他们的寄主蚂蚁由此复苏, 从而确保其不可或缺的关系, 和由此引发的无以伦比的适应力。