研究發現 蜥蜴看見紅色就會逃跑
You wouldn't think studying lizards is a particularly dangerous profession. Until, that is, sheriffs approach you with their guns drawn. "We get the cops called on us sometimes."
也許你不會認爲研究蜥蜴是一個危險的職業。直到警察拔出槍指着你的時候。“有時候，我們真的會被警察‘逮到’”。Bree Putman, a behavioral ecologist at U.C.L.A. and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. Her colleague at the museum, Greg Pauly, really did end up on the wrong side of a gun once, and here's why:
布里·普特曼是加州大學洛杉磯分校和洛杉磯自然歷史博物館的一名行爲生態學家。她和她的博物館同事格雷格·保利還真經歷過一次槍口事件，以下就是爲什麼："A lot of times we're doing work at night in people's neighborhoods and we're using flashlights to look for geckos on the sides of people's houses. And so sometimes people will think we're criminals or burglars or something."
“我們經常夜間在社區裏工作，用手電筒在人們房屋周圍找壁虎。因此有時候，人們會錯把我們當成罪犯或竊賊。”
The museum's solution was neon orange shirts with the museum logo. "And we call these shirts the 'don't shoot me' shirts." But the bright orange left Putman with a concern: that the color would spook the very animals they were trying to study.
博物館給出的解決方法是讓她們穿上印有博物館標誌的霓虹橙色襯衫。“我們把這個襯衣叫做“別對我開槍”襯衫。”但是鮮豔的橙色讓普特曼有點擔心：襯衣的顏色可能會把他們想研究的動物嚇跑。
So she devised an experiment. "I basically designed a study to show to the museum staff that these shirts were not going to be good for research, and that's what I found.”
於是她設計了一個實驗。“我就是想通過這個實驗，向博物館的工作人員證明這個襯衫對研究沒有益處，這就是我的發現。”In her trials, Putman wore tank tops of various colors -- red, gray, light blue, dark blue -- and then attempted to approach and capture western fence lizards in public and private parkland in L.A.
在她的試驗中，普特曼分別穿上各種顏色的背心--紅色、灰色、淺藍色、深藍色，然後試圖在洛杉磯公共和私人公園裏接近並捕捉西部圍欄蜥蜴。And she found that when wearing dark blue, she could get twice as close to the lizards, compared to when she wore red.
她發現，當她身穿深藍色背心時，要比她身穿紅色背心時更容易接近蜥蜴，距離要縮小兩倍。And she was about twice as likely to catch a lizard too, while wearing dark or light blue, compared to red or gray.
而且相對於穿紅色或灰色衣服，穿淺藍或者深藍背心的時候，會有兩倍的機率能抓住那些蜥蜴。Putman thinks that the lizards may be more tolerant of blue hues, because they most closely resemble the blue patches males have on their bellies -- a sexual signal.
普特曼認爲蜥蜴也許更適應藍色調，因爲這種色調最接近雄性發出求愛信號時，其腹部出現的藍色斑塊。Other studies have shown that birds with orange and red plumage are similarly less creeped out by orange and red shirts.
其他的研究結果表明，有橙色和紅色羽毛的鳥類。同樣也不太會被橙色和紅色的襯衫嚇到。
