46 Which of the following phrases is closest in meaning to the word “species”?
(A)Various food.
(B)Various eaters.
(C)Various animals.
(D)Various brain power.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University decided to find out how intelligent various animals are.
范德堡大學的研究人員決定探究不同動物的智力水平。

To rightly compare brainpower in species, it isn’t enough to weigh brain tissue. You must take into account the brain relative to the organism’s size.
要正確比較不同物種的腦力，光是稱量腦組織的重量是不夠的，必須考慮腦部相對於身體大小的比例。

But this may fall short of evaluating actual intelligence.
但這樣的衡量方式可能仍不足以評估真正的智力。

Neuroscientist Suzana Herculano-Houzel said, “I believe the absolute number of neurons an animal has determined the richness of their internal mental state and their ability to predict what is about to happen in their environment based on past experience.”
神經科學家蘇薩娜·赫庫拉諾-豪澤爾表示：「我相信動物擁有的神經元絕對數量決定了其內在心智狀態的豐富程度，以及根據過去經驗預測環境中即將發生事情的能力。」

She and her colleagues found that meat eaters have about the same number of neurons as plant eaters.
她和同事們發現，肉食動物與草食動物擁有大致相同數量的神經元。

That means plant eaters need as much brain power to escape from predators as meat eaters need to catch them.
這表示草食動物需要同等的腦力來逃避掠食者，而肉食動物則需要相當的腦力來捕捉獵物。

How do cats and dogs measure up? Previous findings had cats ahead at 300 million neurons to dogs roughly 160 million.
那貓和狗的腦力表現如何呢？先前的研究顯示，貓擁有約3億個神經元，狗約1.6億個，貓略勝一籌。

In this latest study, however, dogs were on top, with 530 million neurons to cats 250 million.
然而，在最新的研究中，狗以5.3億個神經元超越貓的2.5億個。

Just for comparison, humans have around 16 billion such neurons.
作為比較，人類大約擁有160億個此類神經元。

Even so, dogs were way above other meat eaters in the brainpower department.
即便如此，狗在腦力方面仍遠超其他肉食動物。

Having a bigger brain has a downside, researchers have found.
研究人員發現，擁有較大腦袋也有其缺點。

“Meat eating is largely considered a problem-solver in terms of energy,” Herculano-Houzel said, “but in retrospect, it is clear that meat eating animals must impose a delicate balance between how much brain and body a species can afford.”
赫庫拉諾-豪澤爾說：「肉食通常被認為是能量利用上的解決方案，但回頭看來，肉食動物必須在腦容量與身體大小之間取得微妙的平衡。」

This may be why you often see large predators like lions and bears dozing.
這也許解釋了為什麼你經常看到像獅子和熊這樣的大型掠食者在打盹。

1. Which of the following phrases is closest in meaning to the word “species”?
   以下哪一個片語與「species」（物種）一詞的意思最接近？

(A) Various food.
各種食物。

(B) Various eaters.
各種食肉者。

(C) Various animals.
各種動物。

(D) Various brain power.
各種腦力。

Answer / 答案： (C) Various animals.
「species」指的是不同種類的生物，也就是「各種動物」，因此選項(C)最接近其意思。