猴子不能惹，他可能会报复你的亲人

Don’t mess with a monkey. Because if you do, he’s might take revenge—on your family and friends. That’s according to a study of Japanese macaques, which shows that monkeys keep track of each’s others’ associates and make use of that intel when it comes time for payback. The findings are in the Royal Society journal Open Science.

不要招惹猴子。因为如果你惹恼了猴子，它可能会报复你的家人和朋友。这是一项关于日本猕猴的研究得出的结论，该研究表明，猴子会记住对方同伴的情况，在采取报复行动时利用这些信息。这项研究结果发表在《英国皇家协会.开放科学》期刊上。

Researchers were interested in the question of how primates suss out social relationships, knowledge that can come in handy for maneuvering within a complex society. To assess how the macaques obtain and make use of such social know-how, the researchers decided to focus on episodes of aggression—a common feature of simian interactions.

研究人员感兴趣的是，这些灵长类动物是如何弄清楚社会关系的，这种关系是在操纵复杂社会时派得上用场的知识。为了评估猕猴如何获得并利用这种社交技能，研究人员决定集中研究侵略事件——这是类人猿互动的共同特征。

They went through more than 500 hours of video recordings showing the exchanges that took place in a group of 57 macaques living in the Rome Zoo—monkeys whose genealogical relationships are well known. And they parsed some 15,000 episodes of aggression, noting the relationships among the individuals involved.

他们查看了500多个小时的视频录像，这些录像记录了罗马动物园中57只猕猴之间的交流，而且他们事先已经掌握了这些猴子之间的系谱关系。研究人员分析了约15000次侵略事件，同时记录了参与事件的个体之间的关系。

First, they confirmed that monkeys that find themselves at the receiving end of aggression tend to turn around and take it out on a third party. And that retaliation is often directed at a relative of the original aggressor.

首先，研究人员证实，那些发现自己被攻击的猴子，往往会将怒气撒在第三方身上。这种报复通常针对的是原攻击者的亲属。

But how do the monkeys determine who’s kin? Well, one way would be that they’ve been around long enough to have watched each other grow up. But that doesn’t seem to be the case. When researchers looked specifically at conflicts involving older monkeys, it didn’t seem that relatives were singled out for revenge.

但是，猴子如何确定谁是攻击者的亲属？一种方式是它们一直在攻击者周围，看着彼此成长。但是，看起来事实并非如此。当研究人员仔细观察年长猴子之间的冲突时，似乎并未发现攻击者的亲属被选为报复对象的情况。

What does seem to be true is that victims will target their attacker’s associates—the other monkeys he hangs around with. If they’re not his relatives, they’re probably his cronies. So, close enough.

而真相可能是，受害者会把攻击者的同伴当作目标，这些同伴就是一直和攻击者呆在一起的其他猴子。如果这些儿子不是攻击者的亲属，那可能是它的密友。这种关系足够亲密了。

Interestingly, there’s a benefit to hitting family members when you’re meting out justice. Macaques that sought out the kin of the monkeys they wanted to settle a score with were less likely to be picked on again in the future. Whereas wailing on the friends appeared to offer only present satisfaction, but no such future protection.

有趣的是，当猴子伸张正义时，攻击袭击者的家庭成员是有好处的。找出攻击者亲属进行报复的猕猴，日后被选中为攻击对象的可能性较小。但是向朋友哭诉的猴子似乎只能获得一时的欣慰，但是未来不会得到保护。

Which suggests if you’re gonna beat on someone for payback, it should at least be a monkey’s uncle.

这表明，如果你想击打某人进行报复，那它至少得是猴子的叔叔。