人們驚奇地發(fā)現(xiàn)蚱蜢是粉紅色的

人們驚奇地發(fā)現(xiàn)蚱蜢是粉紅色的

A bright pink grasshopper was spotted in a Texas garden last week by an Austin resident and her young son. No, the grasshopper hadn’t got bored of winter and decided to embrace the colors of spring, sometimes grasshoppers do come in pink.

上周，奧斯汀的一位居民和她年幼的兒子在德克薩斯州的花園里發(fā)現(xiàn)了一只亮粉色的蚱蜢。不，蚱蜢并沒有對冬天感到厭倦，而是決定擁抱春天的顏色，有時候蚱蜢確實是粉紅色的。

The fancy little critter was discovered by Allison Barger’s 3-year-old son in their garden, thanks to its unusual coloring making it stand out. Barger sent photos into local news station KXAN, and from there, its fame has spread.

這只奇特的小動物是艾莉森·巴格爾3歲的兒子在他們家的花園里發(fā)現(xiàn)的，多虧了它不同尋常的顏色，才讓它脫穎而出。巴格爾把照片傳到了當?shù)氐腒XAN新聞電臺，從那里開始，巴格爾的名聲就傳開了。

Allison Barger

WOW! Check out this rare pink grasshopper found in a garden in SW Austin. Have you ever seen something like this? Photo courtesy Allison Barger.

哇!看看這只罕見的粉紅色蚱蜢，它是在奧斯汀西南部的一個花園中發(fā)現(xiàn)的。你見過這樣的東西嗎?圖片由艾莉森·巴格爾提供。

While definitely rare and unusual, the striking hue of this bubblegum pink hopper is not actually unique. The color is down to a genetic mutation called erythrism related to the overproduction of red pigments and the underproduction of dark pigments, caused by a recessive gene – much like that for albinism, melanism, and leucism.

盡管這只泡泡糖粉色的蚱蜢非常罕見，但它引人注目的色調(diào)其實并不是獨一無二的。這種顏色是由一種叫做赤體病的基因突變引起的，它是由一種隱性基因引起的，這種隱性基因與白化病、黑變病和亮色病很相似。

Erythrism has been seen in a variety of animals, from a “strawberry blond” leopard in South Africa to a snake in Georgia, and though it is indeed rare, it most often seems to crop up in grasshoppers, with people spotting them from Japan to Ireland, and now Texas. It was first documented in 1887 in a katydid species, and is usually only seen in nymphs – young grasshoppers – as many don’t make it to adulthood thanks to their color shining a spotlight on them.

從南非的“草莓金發(fā)”豹子到喬治亞州的蛇，各種各樣的動物身上都發(fā)現(xiàn)了斑疹熱。盡管斑疹熱確實很罕見，但它似乎最常出現(xiàn)在蚱蜢身上，從日本到愛爾蘭，再到現(xiàn)在的德克薩斯州，人們都能在蚱蜢身上發(fā)現(xiàn)斑疹熱。它在1887年首次被記錄在一種蟈蟈類動物身上，通常只在若蟲(年輕的蚱蜢)身上看到，因為許多蚱蜢無法活到成年，這要歸功于它們身上的顏色。

Pink is definitely the color to be seen in this season, as another rosy-hued wonder took the world by storm recently. First spotted back in 2015, the world's only known pink manta ray – nicknamed Inspector Clouseau after the bumbling character in the Pink Panther – who resides in Australia, was back in the spotlight recently when photographer Kristian Laine snapped him in the waters around Lady Elliot Island and shared the pictures on Instagram.

毫無疑問，粉紅色是本季最搶眼的顏色，最近，另一種粉紅色的奇觀席卷全球。首次發(fā)現(xiàn)早在2015年,世界上唯一的已知的粉紅色的蝠鲼(俗稱探長克魯索在粉紅豹笨手笨腳的角色后,居住在澳大利亞,最近在聚光燈下的是攝影師克里斯蒂安·萊恩拍攝他的夫人艾略特島周圍水域和共享Instagram的照片。

Don't dim my shine. Nadine Klose/Shutterstock

Pink grasshoppers may be rarely spotted because without their greeny-brown camouflage that allows them to fade into the foliage, they are easy targets for hopper-munching predators. That doesn't mean all grasshoppers want to be wallflowers though.

粉紅色的蚱蜢可能很少被發(fā)現(xiàn)，因為沒有它們的綠棕色偽裝，它們很容易成為捕食者的目標。但這并不意味著所有的蚱蜢都想當壁花。

South Africa's Elegant grasshopper (Zonocerus elegans) either didn't get the memo or is too fabulous to care.

南非優(yōu)雅的蚱蜢要么沒有得到這份備忘錄，要么因為太過華麗而無暇顧及。