“群体中99.99%的个体永远不会繁殖。”福克斯告诉我。与狐獴不同，从属裸鼹鼠从不通过偷偷摸摸的交配来挑战禁止繁殖的规则。他们没法这样做。裸鼹鼠女王通过抑制他们的生殖器官发育来消除任何为人父母的念头。雄性和雌性从属裸鼹鼠都处于青春期前的状态，甚至不具有成熟的生殖器官。因此，在这个真社群性系统中，从属个体的交配活动被完全排除。福克斯告诉我，对于不参与繁殖的个体，你甚至无法区分其性别。这些裸鼹鼠就像没有性别的小跟班，按照女王的吩咐在领地里四处穿梭，完成工作。
福克斯的整个职业生涯都在试图揭示裸鼹鼠女王抑制其他个体性器官发育的机制。最初人们认为，就像社会性昆虫一样，这一过程是通过信息素实现的：裸鼹鼠女王在领地周围撒尿，就像在士兵的茶中加入溴化物。福克斯的工作证明，情况并非如此。其他研究人员提出，从属个体可能是食用了女王含有某种化学成分的粪便后被抑制性发育的。裸鼹鼠是狂热的食粪动物。裸鼹鼠幼崽经常向照顾它们的成人讨粪便吃。毕竟，吃粪便可以补充宝贵的肠道细菌、营养素和水分。但福克斯解释说，对女王来说，使用粪便进行如此大范围的群体控制意味着她要“像机枪扫射一样排出粪便”，但福克斯并没有观察到这种情况。
福克斯认为，裸鼹鼠女王通过轻微的身体霸凌，将从属个体限制在无性状态中。人们经常看到她推搡从属个体，让他们知道她有力量。为了避免被攻击，工人和士兵必须顺从；如果一个下属在隧道中遇到了女王，女王就会从他身上跨过去，把下属挤在身下。
这种生理抑制的确切潜在机制仍有待研究。但福克斯认为，在非常基本的层面上，来自女王的这些对抗性暗示会转化为一种“压力”状态，改变下属的脑化学反应，并影响负责控制生殖的脑区。福克斯提出，促乳素（人体内称催乳素）在这一过程中可能起着关键作用。
“我们发现，不参与繁殖的雄性和雌性裸鼹鼠体内的促乳素水平非常高，这对人类来说是一种不孕症的表现。”他告诉我。孕妇和新妈妈体内的催乳素含量很高，它会刺激乳房分泌乳汁并减弱生育能力，直到当前的后代断奶。这种激素还与育幼行为有关。因此，促乳素在裸鼹鼠体内有可能具有双重作用：不仅阻止他们繁殖，还使他们能够更好地照顾群体中的幼崽。
裸鼹鼠女王要想在整个群体中保持统治地位，还需要做一些认真的跑腿活儿。
“我们知道她要消耗大量的精力在领地进行巡视。研究发现，女王的活跃度是群体中最高的，是活跃度第二名的个体的2倍以上，女王在18个月左右的时间里移动的距离相当于后者移动距离的3倍。”福克斯向我解释道。
福克斯认为，为了维持对群体的性抑制，这种无休止的巡视是必要的。福克斯告诉我，“裸鼹鼠女王真的不像一个懒惰的君主，她不会只是舒服地躺在巢室，等着其他人把食物送到嘴边（就像社会性昆虫）。王座真的很难坐，她必须一直主动地维持统治地位。”
只要女王一直在巡视领地以维持领导地位，裸鼹鼠群就可以在和平的状态下运作数年，甚至是数十年。但如果任何原因导致女王的力量被削弱或缺失，一切都会崩溃。她的缺席将触发级别仅次于她的雌性在一周内性成熟，然后很快这一切都变成了现实版的《权力的游戏》。
“‘当你玩弄权谋的时候，要么赢，要么死’，这是一句名言，也确实适用于裸鼹鼠。他们在争夺王位的过程中肆意滥杀，自己也可能会被杀死。这太残酷了。”福克斯说。
这些特化的穴居动物已经发展出一种凶猛的咬合方式。他们全身有1/4的肌肉被用于咬合，以便挖掘坚硬的泥土，再加上尖利的长牙作为辅助。当雌性裸鼹鼠将这些挖掘工具变成武器时，场面会非常血腥。福克斯告诉我，笼舍的塑料管上沾满了鲜血，他的团队不得不想办法将打斗的雌性分开。“当这些长有致命牙齿的小东西们全都在互相啃咬的时候，你必须非常小心——她们会咬掉你的手指。”
看着这些皱巴巴的粉色小肉棒用黄色的长牙互相残杀，实在令人难受。“当她们开始相互打斗时，场景很可怕，你会感到有点儿无能为力。我们经常因此而不开心，尤其是当大周六的早上，突然接到实验室负责动物的人打来电话：‘哦，她们在打架！我不知道该怎么办。’”
裸鼹鼠极端暴力的原因在于，对其他雌性来说，女王的衰弱或失踪导致王位空缺，这提供了千载难逢的繁殖机会。在这个地下世界，独自生存是根本不可能的。裸鼹鼠只有组成大群，自我牺牲，才能存活。他们已经演化出了在恶劣环境中的生存方式：通过分工合作，分担责任。他们代表了不可思议的合作力量，也代表了生殖专制。
在一个原本非常成功的社会里，雌性爆发出这些极端暴力行为，这提醒人们注意到雌性具有强烈的生殖意愿，以及真社群性动物群体中酝酿着生殖竞争，并且不可避免地促生了动物界最暴虐的首领。
正如福克斯所说：“裸鼹鼠群是一个乌托邦式的杰出案例，但是很显然，潜伏在表象之下的是各种险恶和残暴。”
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (John Murray, 2nd edn, 1879; republished by Penguin Classics, 2004), pp. 561–75
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (John Murray, 2nd edn, 1879; republished by Penguin Classics, 2004), p. 246
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (John Murray, 2nd edn, 1879; republished by Penguin Classics, 2004), p. 561
Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex (John Murray, 2nd edn, 1879; republished by Penguin Classics, 2004), p. 566
Roxanne Khamsi, ‘Male Antelopes Play Hard to Get’ in New Scientist, 29 Nov.2007, https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn12979-male-antelopes-play-hard-to-get-/
Wiline M. Pangle and Jakob Bro-Jørgensen, ‘Male Topi Antelopes Alarm Snort Deceptively to Retain Females for Mating’ in The American Naturalist (2010), pp. 33–9
Khamsi, ‘Male Antelopes Play Hard to Get’
Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene (Oxford University Press, 2nd edn, 1989; 1st edn, 1976)
Jakob Bro-Jørgensen, ‘Reversed Sexual Conflict in a Promiscuous Antelope’ in Current Biology, 17 (2007), pp. 2157–61
Jakob Bro-Jørgensen, ‘Reversed Sexual Conflict in a Promiscuous Antelope’ in Current Biology, 17 (2007), pp. 2157–61
‘Male Topi Antelope’s Sex Burden’, BBC News, 28 Nov. 2007, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/mobile/sci/tech/7117498.stm
其中年长的雄性又被称为银背大猩猩。——译者注
是的，你没看错。“后宫群”是一个规范的动物学名词（对应的英文是“harem”），又称眷群、闺房群，指一雄多雌制哺乳动物中一只雄兽在生殖期所占有并保卫的一群雌兽。——编者注
Diane M. Doran- Sheehy, David Fernandez and Carola Borries, ‘The Strategic Use of Sex in Wild Female Western Gorillas’ in American Journal of Primatology, 71 (2009),pp. 1011–20
Tara S. Stoinski, Bonne M. Perdue and Angela M. Legg, ‘Sexual Behavior in Female Western Lowland Gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla ): Evidence for Sexual Competition’ in American Journal of Primatology, 71 (2009), pp. 587–93
《乔弟海岸》（Geordie Shore）是英国一个备受争议的重口味真人秀节目。——编者注
Darwin, The Descent of Man (1871)
Paula Stockley and Jakob Bro-Jørgensen, ‘Female Competition and its Evolutionary Consequences in Mammals’ in Biological Review, 86 (2011), pp. 341–66
K. A. Hobson and S. G. Sealy, ‘Female Song in the Yellow Warbler’ in Condor,92 (1990), pp. 259–61; and Rachel Mundy, Animal Musicalities: Birds, Beasts, and Evolutionary Listening (Wesleyan University Press, 2018), p. 38
Clive K. Catchpole and Peter J. B. Slater, Bird Song: Biological Themes and Variations (Cambridge University Press, 2005)
Karan J. Odom, Michelle L. Hall, Katharina Riebel, Kevin E. Omland and Naomi E. Langmore, ‘Female Song is Widespread and Ancestral in Songbirds’ in Nature Communications, 5 (2014), p. 3379
Oliver L. Austen, ‘Passeriform’, Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/animal/passeriform
Naomi Langmore, ‘Quick Guide to Female Birdsong’ Current Biology, 30 (2020),pp. R783–801
Keiren McLeonard, ‘Aussie Birds Prove Darwin Wrong’, ABC, 5 March 2014,https://www. abc.net.au/radionational/programs/archived/bushtelegraph/female-birds-hit the-high-notes/5298150
Carl H. Oliveros et al., ‘Earth History and the Passerine Superradiation’ in PNAS,116: 16 (2019), pp. 7916–25
Odom, Hall, Riebel, Omland and Langmore, ‘Female Song is Widespread and Ancestral in Songbirds’
Hobson and Sealy, ‘Female Song in the Yellow Warbler’
Mary Jane West-Eberhard, ‘Sexual Selection, Social Competition, and Evolution’in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society (1979), pp. 222–34
Mary Jane West-Eberhard, ‘Sexual Selection, Social Competition, and Speciation’in The Quarterly Review of Biology, 58: 2 (1983), pp. 155–83
Tim H. Clutton-Brock, ‘Sexual Selection in Females’ in Animal Behaviour (2009),pp. 3–11
Trond Amundsen, ‘Why Are Female Birds Ornamented?’ in Trends in Ecology &Evolution, 15: 4 (2000), pp. 149–55
Joseph A. Tobias, Robert Montgomerie and Bruce E. Lyon, ‘The Evolution of Female Ornaments and Weaponry: Social Selection, Sexual Selection and Ecological Competition’ in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367 (2012), pp. 2274–93
Joseph A. Tobias, Robert Montgomerie and Bruce E. Lyon, ‘The Evolution of Female Ornaments and Weaponry: Social Selection, Sexual Selection and Ecological Competition’ in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 367 (2012), pp. 2274–93.
D. W. Rajecki, ‘Formation of Leap Orders in Pairs of Male Domestic Chickens’ in Aggressive Behavior, 14: 6 (1988), pp.425–36
Jack El-Hai, ‘The Chicken-hearted Origins of the “Pecking Order” ’ in Discover, 5 July 2016, https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/the-chicken-hearted-origins-of the-pecking-order
Marlene Zuk, Sexual Selections: What We Can and Can’t Learn about Sex from Animals (University of California Press, 2002)
Virginia Abernethy, ‘Female Hierarchy: An Evolutionary Perspective’ in Female Hierarchies, ed. by Lionel Tiger and Heather T. Fowler (Beresford Book Service, 1978)
Sarah Blafer Hrdy, The Woman That Never Evolved (Harvard University Press,1981), p. 109
Susan Sperling, ‘Baboons with Briefcases: Feminism, Functionalism, and Sociobiology in the Evolution of Primate Gender’ in Signs, 17: 1 (1991), p. 18
Richard Gray, ‘Why Meerkats and Mongooses Have a Cooperative Approach to Raising their Pups’, Horizon: The EU Research and Innovation Magazine, 27 June 2019, ttps://ec.europa.eu/researchand-innovation/en/horizon-magazine/why-meerkats andmongooses-have-cooperative-approach-raising-their-pups
Andrew J. Young and Tim Clutton-Brock, ‘Infanticide by Subordinates Influences Reproductive Sharing in Cooperatively Breeding Meerkats’ in Biology Letters, 2 (2006), pp.385–7
Tim Clutton-Brock, Mammal Societies(Wiley, 2016)
Sarah J. Hodge, A. Manica, T. P. Flower and T. H. Clutton-Brock, ‘Determinants of Reproductive Success in Dominant Female Meerkats’ in Journal of Animal Ecology, 77(2008), pp. 92–102
A. A. Gill, AA Gill is Away (Simon & Schuster, 2007), pp. 36–7
K. J. MacLeod, J. F. Nielsen and T. H. Clutton-Brock, ‘Factors Predicting the Frequency, Likelihood and Duration of Allonursing in the Cooperatively Breeding Meerkat’in Animal Behaviour, 86: 5 (2013), pp. 1059–67
‘Infanticide Linked to Wet-nursing in Meerkats’, Science Daily, 7 Oct. 2013,https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/10/131007122558.htm
Young and Clutton-Brock, ‘Infanticide by Subordinates’
José María Gómez, Miguel Verdú, Adela González-Megías and Marcos Méndez,‘The Phylogenetic Roots of Human Lethal Violence’ in Nature, 538 (2016), pp. 233–7
Gray, ‘Why Meerkats and Mongooses Have a Cooperative Approach’
Daniel Elsner, Karen Meusemann and Judith Korb, ‘Longevity and Transposon Defense, the Case of Termite Reproductives’ in PNAS (2018), pp. 5504–9
Takuya Abe and Masahiko Higashi, ‘Macrotermes’, Science Direct (2001) https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/ biochemistry-genetics-and-molecular-biology/macrotermes
F. M. Clarke and C. G. Faulkes, ‘Dominance and Queen Succession in Captive Colonies of the Eusocial Naked Mole-rat, Heterocephalus glaber ’ in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 264: 1384 (1997), pp. 993–1000
Interview with Chris Faulkes, 28 Sept. 2020
希思·鲁宾逊是20世纪初的英国漫画家，擅长绘制结构极其复杂但功能又出奇简单的机器。——编者注
这里指一部美国电影（Bad Johnson），有网友将片名译为“人形恶屌”，片中主角的“命根子”变成了人形。——编者注
Xiao Tian, Jorge Azpurua, Christopher Hine, Amita Vaidya, Max Myakishev Rempel, Julia Ablaeva, Zhiyong Mao, Eviatar Nevo, Vera Gorbunova and Andrei Seluanov,‘High- molecular-mass Hyaluronan Mediates the Cancer Resistance of the Naked Mole-rat’in Nature, 499 (2013), pp. 346–9
Brady Hartman, ‘Google’s Calico Labs Announces Discovery of a “Non- aging Mammal” ’, Lifespan.io, 29 Jan. 2018, https://www.lifespan.io/news/ non-aging-mammal/[accessed Dec.2020]; and Rochelle Bufenstein, ‘The Naked Mole-rat: A New Long-living Model for Human Aging Research’ in The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, 60: 11 (2005),pp. 1369–77
Chris Faulkes, ‘Animal Showof’, July 2014 (YouTube, 15 April 2015), https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VmxP7nDQnM
‘Naked Mole-rat (Heterocephalus glaber ) Fact Sheet: Reproduction &Development’, San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance Library, https://ielc.libguides.com/sdzg/factsheets/ naked-mole-rat/reproduction
Chris Faulkes, ‘Animal Showof’
溴化物旧时常用作镇静剂。——译者注
Daniel E. Rozen, ‘Eating Poop Makes Naked Mole-rats Motherly’ in Journal of Experimental Biology, 221: 21 (2018)
Clarke and Faulkes, ‘Dominance and Queen Succession’
C. G. Faulkes and D. H. Abbot, ‘Evidence that Primer Pheromones Do Not Cause Social Suppression of Reproduction in Male and Female Naked Mole-rats(Heterocephalus glaber )’ in Journal of Reproduction and Fertility (1993), pp. 225–30
