Six Things You Won’t Believe AnimalsDo Just like Us （I）

Kristi Harrison

作为人类是件高大上的事儿——我们的双手如此灵巧，没有什么创造不了；我们的大脑如此发达，脑袋都快要装不下……然而，当你高歌着“我是人类我傲娇”时，动物们显然并不这么想。也许，你还并不了解它们的本事有多大。当你给家里的娃娃做了个小床，当你唱完周杰伦想换一首蔡健雅，当你思索小孩是叫Tom还是Jerry时，动物们可能也在做着相同的事呢。

1. Parrots Name Their Babies鹦鹉会给宝宝起名

What to name a baby is one of the first things that expecting parents obsess about, for names are part of what makes their babies unique and help to forge their individual identity.1. obsess about: 担心，忧虑；forge:锻造。And more than that, individual names also make humans special. After all,outside of sappy Disney movies involving comically deformed elephants, what other animal parent takes the time to give each of its newborn members its own permanent moniker?2

Except the talking animals depicted in Disney movies aren’t so far off the mark,3. depict: 描绘；off the mark: 没谱，不准确。at least when it comes to a few select species.

2. 毕竟，除了傻乎乎的迪士尼电影里滑稽的大象外，还有什么动物会花时间给新出生的宝宝起个名字呢？sappy:傻兮兮的；comically: 滑稽地；deformed: 变形的；moniker: 名字，绰号。

Wait, what?

Dolphins, crows, primates4. primate: 灵长类动物。and parrots have all been observed using unique calls when they want the attention of specific members of their groups.This means that, at least among these species, individual animals actually have the equivalent5. equivalent: 同等物。of their own names. Most perplexing of all seems to be parrots, because according to pirate-movie logic,6. perplexing: 令人困惑的；pirate:海盗。it should scientifically turn out that every single parrot ever has the same name.

What the scientists found was that it was not the parrot newborns who got to choose their signature7. signature: 特有的，标志性的。calls. Instead, it was the proud parrot parents who gave each chick8. chick: 雏鸟。its name. Much like a human, the adult parrot will choose a name for its young soon after it’s born. Each parrot, though, may tweak its own signature call as it grows older, elongating a whistle here or shortening a chirp there, essentially giving itself a nickname.9. 但是每只鹦鹉在长大后会对自己特有的名字稍作调整，在这儿拉长一个哨声，或者在那儿缩短一个叫声，从而给自己起个绰号。tweak: 对……稍作改进；elongate: 拉长，延长；chirp:啁啾。

2. Whales Have Pop Songs鲸鱼也有流行歌曲

Obviously, humans aren’t the only animals that sing.Birds do it, killer whales10. killer whale: 虎鲸，又称杀人鲸。do it, and if you happen to work in construction and are really lucky, you might just see a frog do it.

What makes humans unique is pop culture. One guy can make a song, put it on an album or the Internet and have thousands of people singing along to it, all over the world. There’s no way another animal does that, right?

Well, we know of at least one.

Wait, what?

Whale songs become “hits”11. hit: 红极一时的歌曲。that can spread halfway around the globe. All the males in a humpback whale12. humpback whale: 座头鲸。population usually sing just one song at any given time. But once they get bored of that song, an innovator in the group will start singing a new one. Once a new song catches on, every hip male in the community will start singing it, too.13. catch on: 流行起来；hip: 新潮的，时髦的。But that’s just a bunch of whales in a group imitating each other.14. a bunch of: 一群；imitate: 模仿。That’s not like the mass media15. mass media: 大众媒体。pop culture humans have, right?

Except scientists have found out that a song doesn’t stay limited to just one population. A catchy enough tune will actually spread all over the Pacific, from Australia to French Polynesia,16. catchy: （曲调）朗朗上口的，悦耳易记的；French Polynesia: 法属波利尼西亚，位于太平洋东南部。thousands of miles, over a couple of years.

3. Chimps Play with Dolls黑猩猩会和布偶玩耍

Girls will lead entire fantasy17. fantasy: 幻想，想象。lives with their dolls, giving them names, taking care of them when they’re pretend-sick, giving them pretend-weddings and even pretend-scolding them when they pretend-make poor life decisions. Having such an active imagination is surely not just one of the most childlike traits you can probably think of, but also one of the most human.After all, it’s not like other animal species are out there having little slumber parties18. slumber party: 睡衣晚会（儿童们的聚会，当晚都在一个孩子家里过夜）。with their dolls while we’re not looking,right?

Except, yeah, there’s one species that’s totally doing exactly that.

Wait, what?

Researchers found that young female chimps would take sticks,bark, small logs and vines, and not only cradle them as if they were baby chimps themselves, but also use their imagination for the whole doll-owning experience.19. 研究人员发现，幼年的雌猩猩会找来小棍、树皮、小木头和树藤，它们不仅会把这些东西当作小猩猩抱在怀里，而且还会通过想象来体验整个和“布偶”玩耍的过程。bark: 树皮；log:（从树上砍下的）原木；vine:藤蔓；cradle: 轻轻地抱着。

When playing with their doll-sticks, the young females would cuddle with them, put them to bed and rest with them in their nests like a little girl sleeping with her plush toy for security.20. doll-stick: 被当作布娃娃的小棍；cuddle: 拥抱；plush toy:毛绒玩具。A few times, the little dolls even got the equivalent of their own Barbie dream houses, as the chimp girls would build separate nests just for them to pretend-live in. And during the day, the chimp girls would also walk around with their sticks tucked between their stomachs and their thighs, mimicking the way that mother chimpanzees carry their babies.21. tuck: 把……塞进，藏入；thigh: 大腿；mimic: 模仿；chimpanzee: 黑猩猩，上文中的chimp为非正式用法。

All this behavior, which was witnessed over a hundred times during 14 years, was not just limited to girl chimps. One young male chimp was seen using a stick to play “airplane,” resting on his back and holding the stick up with his hands and feet, the way that many parents play with their young children. In another instance, a male chimp was seen with his own stick dolly after he saw his mom was pregnant22. pregnant: 怀孕的。, pretending to care for it.