丢掉第一枚蛋!朋克企鹅是如何育儿的|科学60秒

丢掉第一枚蛋！朋克企鹅是如何育儿的｜科学60秒

翘眉企鹅的奇特育儿策略

These Punk Rock Penguins Have a Bizarre Breeding Strategy

在新西兰东南方几百千米处，坐落着饱经风霜的邦蒂群岛（Bounty Islands）和安蒂波德斯群岛（Antipodes Islands），世界上可能最朋克摇滚的企鹅在那里繁殖，[企鹅叫声] 它们蓄着两溜儿漂过的金色莫霍克发型（mohawk）。

新西兰奥塔哥大学（University of Otago）的劳埃德·戴维斯（Lloyd Davis）：“这就像你把一只企鹅的鳍足插进电源插座里，让它被电击一下后的样子。”

翘眉企鹅还有着奇特的繁殖策略：雌性企鹅产下两枚蛋，但一般让第一枚自生自灭。

戴维斯：“它们只是把蛋轻轻下到石头上，这场景看着就很奇怪。然后40%的企鹅就此转身离去，甚至都没有尝试去孵化它，仿佛‘我不在乎那玩儿。’”

戴维斯表示这极不寻常，因为大多数鸟类会将精力倾注给产下的第一枚蛋，然后是第二枚以及后面的蛋……但最后一枚蛋几乎是事后才想起来补救的那枚。

戴维斯：“最后一枚蛋对它们来说就像一份保险，也就是如果它们失去了其他蛋中的一枚，还可以选择从最后那枚蛋中孵出雏鸟。但翘眉企鹅恰恰相反，这也是……[查看全文]

These Punk Rock Penguins Have a Bizarre Breeding Strategy

Christopher Intagliata: For 60-Second Science, I’m Christopher Intagliata.

Hundreds of miles southeast of New Zealand, lie the windswept Bounty and Antipodes Islands. It’s there you’ll find the breeding grounds of what may be the world’s most punk-rock penguin. [Penguin calls]… which sports twin bleached-blond mohawks.

Lloyd Davis: “It’s like if you took a penguin and put its flipper in an electricity outlet and it got a shock. That’s what you might imagine it looks like.”

Intagliata: Lloyd Davis of New Zealand’s University of Otago says the erect-crested penguin, as it’s known, also has a peculiar breeding strategy. The females lay two eggs. But generally leave the first one to die.

Davis: “They just plop the egg on the rock. It’s just bizarre to see. And then 40 percent just turn their back on it. They don’t even attempt to incubate it, it’s like ‘I don’t care about that.'”

Intagliata: Davis says that’s unusual—because most birds pour resources into the first egg, and the second, and however many more … but the last egg is almost an afterthought.

Davis: “The final egg acts like an insurance policy for them, so if they lose one of the other eggs, they can rear the chick from that one. But this is quite the opposite. Because, in this case—and this is why it’s…[full transcript]

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论文信息

Davis, L.S. et al. (2022) “The breeding biology of erect-crested penguins, Eudyptes sclateri: Hormones, behavior, obligate brood reduction and conservation,” PLOS ONE, 17(10).