動物飲食，吃剩菜的狐狸

Foxes Have Dined on Our Leftovers for 30，000 Years

Foxes Have Dined on Our Leftovers for 30，000 Years

02：58

來自科學英語世界

Foxes Have Dined on Our Leftovers for 30，000 Years

狐狸吃我們的剩菜有超過3000年了

Foxes hunt small animals。 And when other predators， including us， kill large animals， foxes are known to scavenge on the leftovers。 Now a study of their scavenging shows that foxes have slyly relied on people for food for tens of thousands of years。

狐狸吃小動物。當其他的捕獵者包括我們擊殺大型動物時，狐狸知道去打掃食物殘渣。一項關於狐狸覓食的研究表明狐狸偷吃人們的剩菜超過上萬年。

“I saw that foxes benefit a lot today from humans。 And I was wondering if this was also the case in the past。”

“我發現狐狸從人類身上獲益良多。我想這或許在過去也是一樣。”

Chris Baumann from the University of Tübingen‘s Institute for Scientific Archaeology。

Chris Baumann是來自Tübingen’s 大學的科學考古研究所的專家。

Humans may have had a hand in driving the extinction of large herbivores like mammoths and mastodons in the late Pleistocene， which ended around 12，000 years ago。 But we inadvertently helped other species—and Baumann suspected that Pleistocene-era foxes may have been among them。

在新世紀時期，大型的草食動物例如長毛象、巨齒象的滅絕可能與人類有關，這可以追溯到12000年前。我們無意的幫助了其他物種，Baumann懷疑新世紀時期的狐狸就屬這些物種裡面。

So Baumann and his team obtained the remains of 70 foxes found in southwestern Germany。 They ranged from around 42，000 years ago， when Neanderthals lived in the area， to some 30，000 years ago， when Homo sapiens came to dominate the region。

Baumann和他的團隊獲得了德國西南地區發現的70只狐狸的遺骸。它們都在42000年前左右，那時尼安德塔人（原始人）還居住在那裡，直到3000年前智人佔領了整個地區。

“In the study we analyzed the bone collagen of the foxes and saw that there are indeed these different strategies of feeding。”

“在研究中，我們分析了狐狸的骨膠原，發現的確存在不同的餵養方式。”

The carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the fox bones supplied clues to what the foxes had eaten。 And at the earlier， Neanderthal-era sites， a few of the foxes hunted rodents， but most had a diet indistinguishable from the larger carnivores—meaning that they regularly scavenged from the kills made by wolves and bears。

在狐狸骨頭中的碳氮同位素揭示了狐狸吃的食物。早期，在尼安德塔人時期，有一些狐狸捕殺齧齒動物，但是大部分都與常規的大型肉食動物的飲食相同——這意味著它們吃熊或狼的食物殘骸。

But by the late Pleistocene， when we showed up， the foxes had switched to a diet of mainly reindeer and horse meat—that is， human table scraps。 The finding is in the journal PLOS ONE。

到新世紀後期，人類出現時，狐狸的飲食主要轉變為馴鹿和馬的肉，那就是人類餐桌上的剩飯。這一發現釋出在《公共科學圖書館綜合》雜誌上。

“And so this one niche that we figured out， that comes when Homo sapiens entered this area， is more or less stable。 So the foxes have time to feed on this resource over the last years of their life。 And that‘s very cool because now we know that humans must have made some changes in the environment to provide this niche。”

“當智人進入這一區域時，這個生態位或多或少是穩定了。狐狸有時間在生命的最後幾年裡吃這些食物。這很酷，原因是現在人類一定對環境做了一些改變來提供這一生態位”

Neanderthals surely hunted animals too， but there weren’t enough of them， or they didn‘t stay in one place long enough， for the foxes to adapt to scavenging off their dinner plates。 Homo sapiens， on the other hand， did stick around long enough to affect the foxes’ foraging strategy。

尼安德塔人也打獵，但這不足以維繫他們，或者他們呆在一個地方還不太長久，狐狸沒有吃掉他們的剩飯。另一方面，智人的確逗留了長時間，從而影響了狐狸的飲食。

Baumann says that studying the remains of opportunistic scavengers like foxes—that learn to take advantage of human societies—can offer useful information about human impacts on ecosystems over time。

Baumann說道，研究機會主義的覓食例如像狐狸——學會利用人類社會，這可以提供人類長期影響生態環境的有用資訊。