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Bats are one of evolution's great success stories.
蝙蝠是个非常成功的演化故事。
Their ancestors were small mammals that scurried on all fours and probably lived on an insect diet, as many bats do now.
它们的祖先是用四肢快步行走的小型哺乳动物，可能以昆虫为食，就跟现代许多蝙蝠一样。
How those ancestors came to fly is an unsolved mystery.
这些祖先获得飞行能力的过程仍是未解之谜。
The oldest known bat fossils -- from the Green River geological formation in Wyoming, dating to more than 50 million years ago -- already show the transformed forearm and fingers that form the scaffolding for the thin, muscular membrane of the bat's wing.
已知最古老的蝙蝠化石出自怀俄明州的绿河地层，可追溯至超过5000万年前，从这些化石已经可以看出变形的前肢和手指，它们形成支架结构，为蝙蝠轻薄而带肌肉的翼膜提供支撑。
Thus the Latin name for the order of bats, Chiroptera, meaning "hand wing."
因此，蝙蝠目的拉丁文是Chiroptera，意思是“翼手”。
Once bats had taken flight, they filled every ecological niche available to winged creatures and spread around the globe.
蝙蝠获得飞行能力后，就占据了每一个适合有翅动物的生态区位，并分布到全球各地。
One-fifth of all mammal species are bats. Only the order of rodents has more members.
蝙蝠占哺乳动物物种的五分之一，仅次于啮齿目。
Bats eat everything: insects, fruit, nectar, blood, and fish.
蝙蝠什么都吃：昆虫、水果、花蜜、血液、鱼。
They range in size from the bumblebee bat, weighing in at less than an ounce, to the biggest flying fox, a fruit bat with a nearly six-foot wingspan and weighing up to three pounds.
它们的体型差异很大，最小的是蜜蜂蝠，有些体重不到一盎司，而最大的是一种狐蝠，翼展近6英尺、体重达3磅。
Some species are solitary, but many are social.
有些蝙蝠是独居性动物，但许多蝙蝠是社会性动物。
They live in vast colonies and in small groups, roost in trees and caves and attics and behind house shutters.
它们生活在庞大群落或小型族群中，栖息环境包括树林、洞穴、阁楼、百叶窗后。
They are an integral part of just about every ecosystem.
它们几乎在所有生态系统里都是不可或缺的一分子。
They consume mosquitoes and agricultural pests, and pollinate plants like bananas, mangoes, avocados, and durians, the notoriously odorous and economically important Asian fruit.
它们会吃蚊子和农业害虫，并为香蕉、芒果、牛油果、榴莲等植物传粉。
Not to mention the prized agaves of the Sonoran Desert. In short: No bats, no tequila.
更别提北美洲索诺兰沙漠里备受珍视的龙舌兰属植物了，简单来说，没有蝙蝠就没有龙舌兰酒。
And they fly like no other creature, which is what first drew Swartz to that Australian golf course more than 30 years ago.
此外，它们的飞行方式独特非凡，这也是三十几年前首次吸引史沃兹前往澳洲那座高尔夫球场的原因。
At the time, she was studying the mechanics of movement in primates, looking at how skeletons evolved to balance the need for strength with the disadvantages of heavier bones.
当时她正在研究灵长类动物的运动机制，探讨骨架如何演化，才能从对力量的需求和骨骼较重的劣势之间找到平衡。
"It seemed obvious that weight is a problem for flying animals in a way that it isn't for anybody else," she said. "The structure of these limbs magnetized me in a way that no primate limb ever had."
“对于飞行动物而言，体重似乎明显是一大问题，但对其他动物而言则不然。”她说，“蝙蝠的肢体结构深深吸引了我，灵长类的肢体从未让我有这样的感受。”
Because bat wings are made of skin stretched on light bones with many joints, they interact with the air in ways that are not possible for less flexible bird and insect wings.
蝙蝠翅膀是由皮肤在具有许多关节的轻盈骨头上延展所形成，所以这种翅膀与空气的交互作用方式，是较不具弹性的鸟类和昆虫翅膀无法做到的。
Bird wings have three joints, roughly corresponding with the human shoulder, elbow, and wrist.
鸟类翅膀具有三个关节，约略等同于人类的肩关节、肘关节和腕关节。
"Bats have almost as many joints in the wing as we have in a human hand," Swartz said, "and they also have these crazy muscles that are embedded in the skin."
史沃兹说：“蝙蝠翅膀的关节数量几乎跟人类的一双手一样多，而且他们还有埋在皮肤里的强壮肌肉。”
Bat wings are covered with countless tiny hairs that sense shifts in airflow.
蝙蝠的翅膀上覆盖着无数微小的毛发，可以感知气流的变化。
They are in constant conversation with the air, changing shape, creating lift, responding with idiosyncratic invention to each puff and gust:
它们会不断地与空气交互作用，改变形状、创造升力，并且以独特方式应对每一股气流和每一阵强风：
In tests that Swartz and her team ran to present a challenge to normal flight patterns, they found that when they injected a saline solution into bats' abdomens to mimic the weight of a big meal, each animal responded in a different way.
史沃兹和团队在测试中对蝙蝠的正常飞行模式进行考验，他们将生理食盐水注射进蝙蝠腹部，以模拟饱餐一顿后的重量，结果发现每只蝙蝠的应对方式都不同。
Dimitri Skandalis, who studies this extraordinary individual variation at Johns Hopkins University, compared the complexity of bat wing movement to human facial expressions.
迪米崔·斯坎达利斯在约翰霍普金斯大学研究这种惊人的个体差异，他曾经将蝙蝠翅膀动作的复杂性比作人类的面部表情。
All smiles are recognizable as smiles, but no two are exactly the same. Could this intricate, intuitive movement be replicated in a machine?
所有微笑都能视为微笑，但是每个人的微笑都不一样。机器能够复制这种精巧且直觉性的动作吗？
Bat flight is "dancing in the air," said Alireza Ramezani, an assistant professor of engineering at Northeastern University. "For me, creating a drone that looked like that was exciting."
美国东北大学的工程学助理教授阿里雷扎·拉梅萨尼说，蝙蝠飞行就像“在空中起舞”。“我觉得打造飞行方式类似蝙蝠的无人机是很令人兴奋的事。”
Inspired by Swartz's experiments, he took on the challenge of creating bat robots.
他受到史沃兹的实验启发，开始挑战打造蝙蝠机器人。
With the flexibility of hands and the stretchiness of skin, bat wings can cope with rapid and complex shifts in airflow, particularly those that exist inside confined spaces.
蝙蝠翅膀拥有手的灵活度和皮肤的延展性，所以能够应对快速且复杂的气流变化，特别是在封闭空间内。
"There's so many challenges from an engineering design standpoint. How can you have all these components inside a system, a drone that weighs a hundred grams?"
“从工程设计的角度来看，挑战实在很多。要怎样将这些元素全部放进这套系统，放进100克重的无人机里？”
One of the keys to understanding and replicating bat flight, Ramezani said, is that bats do not consciously make every split-second decision.
拉梅萨尼说，了解及复制编蝠飞行的关键之一是蝙蝠不会有意识地做出每个瞬间决定。
The soft tissue of bat wings deforms and reshapes in response to air pressure without needing direction from the brain's air traffic control center -- an example of what engineers call passive dynamics.
蝙蝠翅膀的软组织会因应气压而变形及重塑，过程中不需要脑部的航管中心给予指示，这就是工程师所谓的被动动力学的一个例子。
As bats move their major wing joints, the membrane of the wing transfers that movement to the smaller joints, and the stretchiness of the wing responds to the flow of air against it.
蝙蝠活动翅膀的主要关节时，翼膜会将这种运动传递到较小的关节，而翅膀的延展性会随着接触到的气流而反应。
"In bats," said Ramezani, "you have the locomotion characteristics of jellyfish and the locomotion characteristics of birds."
拉梅萨尼说：“蝙蝠同时拥有水母和鸟的移动特征。”
Although the beauty and complexity of bat flight first caught his attention, Ramezani said, the potential usefulness of a bat drone helped drive the project forward.
拉梅萨尼说，尽管最初引起他注意的是蝙蝠飞行的优美姿态和复杂性，但蝙蝠无人机的潜在用途才是推动这项计划继续发展的要素。
Building on Swartz's findings, he and his team created a soft-bodied robot that can navigate in environments where quadcopter drones, now ubiquitous in peace and war, can't.
他和团队根据史沃兹的研究结果，打造了一个身体柔软的机器人，可以在广泛使用于和平与战争用途的四轴无人机无法通过的环境中飞行。
In the United States alone, he said, there are more than a million miles of sewer lines that are difficult or dangerous for humans to inspect and monitor.
他说，光是在美国，就有超过100万公里长的污水管道，是很难派人类进入检查与监测，或者是有危险的。
And there are caves to explore, for mining and paleontological or archaeological research.
另外还有为了探矿及古生物学或考古学研究而需要探索的洞穴。
What better place to send a bat robot than a small, dark cave, in search of ancient bones or artifacts?
还有哪里比又小又暗的洞穴更适合派出蝙蝠机器人搜寻古代骨骸或文物呢？
