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People have been leaving messages on bathroom walls for thousands of years. Just google "ancient Roman bathroom graffiti." But we're not the only ones to use latrines for information exchange—as two German researchers have confirmed after hundreds of hours watching lemurs pee and poop. For science.
数千年来，人们一直习惯于在浴室的墙壁上留言。你只要在谷歌上搜索“古罗马浴室涂鸦”便可得知了。但不是只有人类才会使用厕所进行信息交流的——这被两位德国科学家证实了，他们花费了数百小时，监视狐猴的大小便。这一切都是为了科学。
Primatologists Iris Dr·scher and Peter Kappeler concentrated on seven sets of pair-bonded members of a species called white-footed sportive lemurs, at a nature reserve in southern Madagascar. Their report is in the journal Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology.
灵长类动物学家Iris Dr·scher和Peter Kappeler将注意力集中在七对结为夫妇的白足运动型狐猴身上。这些狐猴生活在马达加斯加岛南部的一个自然保护区中。他们的报告发表在《行为生态学和社会生物学》杂志上。
Many animals use the same spots repeatedly to do their business, primates in particular. For these lemurs, a specific tree becomes the urine and feces focal point. And because chemical compounds in their waste transmit information, the so-called latrine tree becomes like a bulletin board to post messages for the rest of the community.
许多动物，尤其是灵长类动物，喜欢反复使用同一个地点来处理他们的事情。对这些狐猴来说，一个固定的树就是它们大小便的处所。他们的排泄物中含有化学成分，能够传递信息。所谓的“厕所树”便成了社区公告板，能向社区中的其他成员传递信息。
Based on their 1,097 hours of observations, the researchers conclude that urine and glandular secretions left on the tree trunk are the primary message vehicles. Feces mostly just collects on the ground.
经过了1097个小时的观察，两位科学家得出结论：遗留在树干上的尿液及腺分泌物是主要的信息载体。粪便大多出现在地上。
Some urine telegrams are probably signals from a particular lemur to the neighbors that he or she is around. But male lemurs upped their latrine visits when potential competitors for females came into their home area. So the frequent chemical messages left on the tree probably say in that case, "Buzz off, buddy, she's with me." In lemur.
特定狐猴的尿液要传达的信息大概是告知邻居它的存在。当潜在求偶竞争者闯入男性狐猴的领地时，男性狐猴会将它们的厕所安在相对更高的地方。因此在这种情况下，它们留在树上的化学信息八成是：“走开，伙计，她和我在一起呢。”这就是有关狐猴的研究了。
