THE PROBLEM OF CEROPHAGY OR WAX-EATING IN THE HONEY-GUIDES
THE PROBLEM OF CEROPHAGY OR WAX-EATING IN THE HONEY-GUIDES
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DOI：
10.1086/401170
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发表时间：
1956-01-01
影响因子：
6.5
通讯作者：
KERN, J
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
FRIEDMANN, H;KERN, J
在生物科学领域高度专业化的今天，一个分支的问题直接源于对另一个分支的观察，从表面上看是完全不相关的，这是非常罕见的。然而，这种情况的发生具有重要的意义，因为它提醒人们，所有的生物学都是一个相关的整体，也是对以下倾向的纠正：任何一个专业的线索都会旋转到与整个生物现实的所有关系变得非常脆弱的地步。乍一看，动物行为上的问题和微生物新陈代谢的研究似乎是相距遥远的，但事实并非如此，本文将说明这一点。此外，人们不免会有一种感觉，那就是从生物学中备受诟病的“自然历史”方面产生的问题，可能与来自图书馆和技术专家的扶手椅上的问题是不同的。蜜导鸟是与啄木鸟和烧烤鸟有亲缘关系的一个小家族，由四个属的11个物种组成。除两种外，其余11种都只发生在撒哈拉以南的非洲，另外两种是亚洲的，一种在喜马拉雅山脉，一种在马来亚、苏门答腊岛和婆罗洲的森林中。很少有鸟类家庭给动物行为学的学生带来更令人费解的问题，因为蜂蜜向导在它们的繁殖习性中是寄生的，因为家庭中的一个部分已经与某些哺乳动物--鼠类和人类--发展了一种非常显著的共生关系--这种关系给了鸟类一个共同的名字--蜂蜜向导和它们的技术名称([ndicatoridae)。实际上，这些鸟引导或引导这些伙伴到野生蜜蜂巢穴附近，然后在那里等待它们打开蜂巢，最后鸟类以
IN THESE days of great specialization within the biological sciences, it is all too rarely that a problem in one branch arises directly out of observations in another, superficially quite unrelated one. That this does occur, is, however, significant as a reminder that all of biology is a related whole, and also as a corrective to the tendency to spin out the threads of any one specialty to the point where all relation to total biological reality becomes very tenuous. At first glance it might seem that a problem in animal behavior and a study of microbiological metabolism were mutually remote, but the facts are otherwise, as will be shown in the present paper. Furthermore, one cannot avoid a feeling that a problem growing out of the much maligned" natural history" aspect of biology may have a reality of a different sort from one emanating from the library and the armchair of the technical specialist.The honey-guides, a small family of birds related to the woodpeckers and the barbets, comprise eleven species, classified in four genera. All but two of these eleven occur only in Africa south of the Sahara, while the other two are Asiatic, one in the Himalayas and one in the forests of Malaya, Sumatra, and Borneo. Few families of birds present more puzzling problems to the student of animal behavior, inasmuch as the honey-guides are parasitic in their breeding habits, and because one section of the family has developed a most remarkable symbiotic relationship with certain mammals-ratels and human beings-a relationship that has given the birds both their common name of honey-guides and their technical one ([ndicatoridae). In effect, the birds guide or lead these associates to the near vicinity of wild bees' nests, then wait there for them to open the hives, and finally the birds feed on the bits of