The Vanishing
消逝中的两栖动物
We are witnessing a mass extinction. An exotic fungus is delivering the fatal blow to many amphibians already hit by habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. But unprecedented research and rescue efforts may offer a lifeline to species on the edge.
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消逝中的两栖动物 The Vanishing
消逝中的两栖动物
我们正目击一场大灭绝。原本已因栖地消失、污染、气候变迁而受创的许多两生动物，如今更因一种外来的真菌而遭受致命的一击。不过，空前的研究与解救行动或许可以为这些濒绝生物带来一线生机。
牠抓紧配偶，前脚紧紧抱着牠的躯体，牠则是撑着满肚子的卵躺卧在浅溪里，像张开手那样瘫在牠底下。牠们是多色斑蟾（Atelopus varius），属于罕见的斑蟾属（Atelopus），至今尚无学名，只知道牠们出没于安地斯山丘陵的狭窄楔形区，以及附近的亚马孙河低地。这只母蛙的皮肤看起来像刚上过漆，黄底黑纹，底部呈鲜红色。牠也死了。
He grips his mate, front legs clasped tight around her torso. Splayed beneath him like an open hand, she lies with her egg-heavy belly soaking in the shallow stream. They are harlequin frogs of a rare Atelopus species, still unnamed and known only in a thin wedge of the Andean foothills and adjacent Amazonian lowlands. The female appears freshly painted—a black motif on yellow, her underside shocking red. She is also dead.
在这个戏剧性的场景上方，有一辆推土机正停在峡谷边缘。这是在厄瓜多东南部的利蒙镇附近，铺路工程把一堆石块、残枝、泥土都推下山坡，堵塞了部分的林间溪流。刘易斯‧科娄玛小心翼翼地踏在散落的石块上，检视河川受损状况。这位47岁的爬虫学家戴着眼镜，结实的身子穿着绣满小青蛙的黄衬衫。他懒得卷起卡其裤的裤管，任由裤子湿及膝盖。他拿着棍子拨动碎砾说：「他们毁了青蛙的家园。」
Above this tableau, at the lip of the ravine, a bulldozer idles. Road construction here, near the town of Limón in southeastern Ecuador, has sent an avalanche of rocks, broken branches, and dirt down the hillside, choking part of the forest-lined stream. Luis Coloma steps gingerly over the loose rocks, inspecting the damage to the waterway. The 47-year-old herpetologist is bespectacled and compact in a yellow shirt dotted with tiny embroidered frogs. He hasn't bothered to roll up his khaki pants, which are soaked to the knees. Poking a stick into the debris, he says, "They have destroyed the house of the frog."
青蛙与蟾蜍、蝾螈与水螈、像虫一样
（但鲜为人知）的蚓螈，这些都属于两栖动物纲，牠们冷血、爬行、跳跃，是童话故事里的洞穴生物、圣经里的灾祸，常见于俗谚与巫术里。中世纪欧洲认为青蛙是恶魔，古埃及人则认为牠们象征着生命与多产。对古往今来的小孩来说，他们第一个接触的自然界生物就是滑溜溜的青蛙。对科学家来说，牠们代表存活3亿年的无尾目，演化出6000多个种，就像在地球上走动或跳跃的任何生物一样美丽、多元，同时陷于危险中。
Frogs and toads, salamanders and newts, wormlike (and little-known) caecilians—these are the class Amphibia: cold-blooded, creeping, hopping, burrowing creatures of fairy tale, biblical plague, proverb, and witchcraft. Medieval Europe saw frogs as the devil; for ancient Egyptians they symbolized life and fertility; and for children through the ages they have been a slippery introduction to the natural world. To scientists they represent an order that has weathered over 300 million years to evolve into more than 6,000 singular species, as beautiful, diverse—and imperiled—as anything that walks, or hops, the Earth.
两栖动物是如今饱受威胁的野生动物中受创最深的族群，有多达一半的种受到威胁，数百种濒临灭绝，上百种已经消失。牠们数量下降的情形既快且广，起因错综复杂，即使是在利蒙镇附近的峡谷，推土机也只是诸多危害之一而已。不过我们还有一线希望，如今展开的解救行动将会庇护一些物种，直到灭绝威胁消失为止。至少在实验室里，科学家已帮青蛙治好让全球各地蛙群骤减的真菌侵害。
Amphibians are among the groups hardest hit by today's many strikes against wildlife. As many as half of all species are under threat. Hundreds are sliding toward extinction, and dozens are already lost. The declines are rapid and widespread, and their causes complex—even at the ravine near Limón the bulldozer is just one hazard of many. But there are glimmers of hope. Rescue efforts now under way will shelter some animals until the storm of extinction passes. And, at least in the lab, scientists have treated frogs for a fungal disease that is devastating populations around the world.
在基多，科娄玛与同事桑堤亚哥‧罗恩在厄瓜多天主教大学的动物学博物馆里，为两生动物设立人工繁殖设施。他们坦承这些努力可能微不足道，只能保育少数特定的物种，却想要遏止全国性的损失。该设施里只养了16种两生动物，尽管厄瓜多有逾470种的两生类，但那还只是有纪录的种而已。虽然厄瓜多各地森林除伐严重，每年还是会发现新的种。科娄玛的实验室里约有60种最近发现的种等着命名，足够让十名分类学家忙上十年了。
In Quito, Coloma and his colleague Santiago Ron have established a captive-breeding facility for amphibians at the zoological museum at Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador.They admit it's a drop in the pond, offering safe harbor to a select few in hopes of stemming national losses. The facility houses just 16 species, although Ecuador is home to more than 470. And that's just what's on the books. Despite heavy deforestation across this country, every year new species are discovered. Coloma's lab has about 60 recently discovered species still awaiting scientific names—enough to keep ten taxonomists hard at work for a decade.
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发表于 2009-4-3 22:47
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