When the Prussian naturalist Alexander von Humboldt arrived in South America in 1799，one thing astonished him. "Look at the flowers and the birds，" he wrote. "Even the crayfish are blue and yellow."
Gradually，Humboldt's thoughts developed and changed into an informal guess that organisms in equatorial（赤道的） areas are more colourful than those near the poles.
In a new paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution，Chris Cooney，an evolutionary biologist at the University of Sheffield，and his colleagues offer what they call the most comprehensive examination of this guess to date，demonstrating that it does apply to birds known as passerines，a family of songbirds.
Over several years，Dr Cooney's team photographed 4，527 birds from Britain's Natural History Museum's data — representing roughly half the total bird diversity on Earth.As passerine birds are sensitive and visible to UV light，they see more colours than humans.The researchers，therefore，took pictures under UV light to get true bird's-eye views.
A machine-learning method was then used to identify the colours of the feathers at hundreds of points on each sample.The total number of colours found on each bird was then mapped onto the geographic distribution of their parent species.The researchers used this data to study how colourful different regions of the world were.The key factor here was the diversity of colours on individual birds.
Equatorial birds，the researchers concluded，were indeed more colourful than their cousins in temperate （溫帶的） regions.The birds sampled at the equator had，on average，about 90 different colours，while birds at 60 degrees latitude （緯度） had about 70 colours.
Over the decades，numerous explanations for tropical colourfulness have been put forward.Some have guessed that warmer climates make more resources available to the creatures here，allowing them to spend energy developing adornments （裝飾品）.Others have pointed out that the bright colours may arise from chemical compounds in their diet，or make it possible for breeding pairs to spot one another in the darker environment of a tropical forest floor.
（1）What surprised Humboldt when he arrived in South America？ DD
A．The breathtaking scenery.
B．The diversity of creatures.
C．The extremely hot temperature.
D．The rich colours of the organisms.
（2）What did Cooney's team intend to do？ CC
A．To study why passerine birds are sensitive to UV light.
B．To figure out how passerine birds are distributed in the world.
C．To test whether creatures in equatorial areas are more colourful.
D．To discover whether the colour diversity is related to the species diversity.
（3）Which of the following might Cooney agree with？ AA
A．Colourfulness changes with latitude.
B．Colourfulness shows the evolution of birds.
C．Bright colours contribute to the survival of birds.
D．Bright colours are associated with birds' sharp vision.
（4）Which aspect of tropical colourfulness does the last paragraph focus on？ BB
A．Its influence.
B．Its causes.
C．Its importance.
D．Its discovery
【考點(diǎn)】說(shuō)明文；自然科學(xué)研究成果．
【答案】D；C；A；B
【解答】
【點(diǎn)評(píng)】
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發(fā)布：2024/4/20 14:35:0組卷：5引用：1難度：0.5
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