大象闻袜子
人类和大象并不总能和睦相处。在非洲和亚洲，大象会破坏基础设施、农田作物，以及其他物种的重要自然栖息地。如果一头大象变成了麻烦，人类可能会将其杀死，所以当地人和环保主义者尝试找到更好的方法，让大象远离敏感地区。如今，研究人员发现了一种驱赶象群的更好工具：蜜蜂信息素。
“象鼻内部被蛰会大象非常不适，大象的鼻子是一个及其敏感的器官。想象一只蜜蜂飞进你鼻子里蜇了一下，然后将这种疼痛感放大1000倍。”夏威夷大学（University of Hawaii）的昆虫学教授马克·赖特（Mark Wright）讲道。
肯尼亚的农民很早就发现，如果在农田周围挂上有蜜蜂生活的蜂巢，大象就不敢靠近。“这有一个逻辑上的问题：如果你想保护的区域非常大片，又该如何管理成千上万个蜂巢呢？于是我们就关注到了警报信息素，一旦蜂巢遭到袭击，蜜蜂会释放出这种化学物质展开防御性进攻。”因为大象的嗅觉高度发达，赖特团队认为他们或许能利用蜜蜂的化学警报信号来干预大象的行为。
研究人员测试了一种模拟蜜蜂警报信息素的化学合成混合物。在南非大克鲁格国家公园（Greater Gruger National Park）某处大象饮水坑的周围，研究团队挂上了用合成混合物处理过的白袜子，以及没有经过处理的对照组白袜子，然后观察大象的行为。“大象真的好奇心很强，它们走来走去，看到挂在树枝上的袜子，然后用鼻子翻看检查，如果是没有涂信息素的袜子，它们就会摘下来扔地上，塞到嘴里尝尝味道等等。如果是处理过的袜子，我们发现它们立刻表现出不舒服或者怀疑……[查看全文]
Honey Bee Alarm Signal Could Protect Elephants
Humans and elephants don"t always get along. In Africa and Asia, elephants damage infrastructure, farmers" crops, and natural habitat critical for other species. If an elephant becomes a problem, humans may kill it. So local people and conservationists are trying to find better ways to keep elephants away from sensitive places. Now, researchers think they have a good tool to deter elephants: honeybee pheromones.
"Elephants deplore being stung in the trunk, it"s an extremely sensitive organ. Imagine being stung in your nose by a bee, and multiply that a few thousand times." Mark Wright, a professor of entomology at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa.
Kenyan farmers have long known that if they hang live beehives around their farms, they will repel elephants. "The problem is logistically, how do you manage hundreds of thousands of hives, if you have a huge area to protect? And then the idea came up to look at the alarm pheromones, which are chemicals that the bees release to launch an attack on something that"s marauding the hive." Because elephants have a highly developed sense of smell, Wright and his team thought they might be able to use the bees" chemical alarm signal to affect elephant behavior.
So the researchers tested out a synthetic blend of chemicals that mimics honeybees" alarm pheromones. In Greater Kruger National Park in South Africa, the team hung white socks treated with the synthetic mixture as well as untreated control socks around an elephant watering hole, and then observed the animals" behavior. "Elephants are really curious organisms, they"ll walk along and see something like a sock hanging on a branch in the environment, and they"ll inspect it, and if it"s not treated with the alarm pheromones, they"ll pick it up, throw it around, try to taste it, things like that. In the case of the treated ones, we found that they would show immediate signs of unease or uncertainty...[full transcript]
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