经济学人:熊猫遗传学:熊猫的远亲是谁?(1)

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　　Hey dude. Give me six! 嘿，伙计。用六指击个掌吧！

　　Two strange mammals illuminate² the process of natural selection. 两种不同的哺乳动物阐明自然选择的过程。

　　Convergent³ evolution—the arrival, independently, by different species at the same answer to a question posed by nature—is a topic of great interest to biologists. 趋同进化是生物学家们有着极大兴趣的话题，它是指在自然作用下，不同物种独立的共同进程。

　　One aspect of the phenomenon which has not yet been much looked at, however, is its underlying⁴ genetics. 然而该现象在潜在基因方面尚未得到许多的关注。

　　In particular, an issue not previously⁵ addressed is how often such changes arise from similar mutations in the two convergent lines,  尤其是在两条趋势线中来自相似基因突变引起趋同变化的频率，

　　and how often they have different genetic¹ causes that happen to have similar effects on the organisms’ forms and functions. 以及不同基因对生物的形态功能起到相似作用的概率的方面，尚未得到解决。

　　That has now been rectified⁶ by an examination of two creatures which,  如今通过对两种生物的检验已得到纠正，

　　though only distantly related, share an unusual feeding habit, an unusual anatomical feature and an unusual name: panda. 虽然这两种动物是远亲，但他们都具有与众不同的饮食习性、解剖特性以及一个不寻常的名字：熊猫。

　　The giant panda is a black and white bear. The red panda is related to weasels, raccoons and skunks⁷.  大熊猫是一种黑白相间的熊。小熊猫与鼬鼠，浣熊和臭鼬具有亲属关系。

　　Their habitats—mountainous areas of southern China and its neighbours—overlap, but their last common ancestor lived 43m years ago.  他们的栖息地在华南山区且近亲重叠，在4300万年前，他们有着共同祖先。

　　They do, though, share a limited kinship, for both are members (along with dogs, cats, hyenas⁸, mongooses, seals and so on) of the mammalian order Carnivora.  尽管如此，由于它们都是食肉目哺乳动物类（像狗，猫，鬣狗，猫鼬，海豹等），所以确实有一些相同的血缘关系。

　　Which is curious, because both are vegetarian⁹. 令人好奇的是它们都是食草动物。

　　More intriguingstill, both subsist¹⁰ almost entirely¹¹ on bamboo (some etymologists think their mutual¹² name is derived¹³ from the Nepali phrase nigalyaponya, meaning "bamboo-eater").  更有趣的是，它们几乎完全以竹子为食（一些词源学家认为它们的共同名字源于尼泊尔语nigalyaponya，指“食竹者”）。

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