DEEP DIVES

On Minecraft’s sandy shores, there are plenty of exciting things to uncover. Shipwrecks! Buried treasure! Er... sugarcane? But there’s one other delight that causes my heart to grow whenever I see them flapping their little flippers around. A hero in a half-shell: the turtle! Rejoice, friends, it’s our mob of the month!
在 Minecraft 的沙滩上，有着许多激动人心的东西等待发现。这里有沉船，有埋藏的宝藏，还有......甘蔗？但对我来说，没有什么比看着它们摆动小小 的脚蹼更快乐的事了。它们是海龟，是背着硬壳的小小英雄！狂欢吧，朋友，这就是我们本月要介绍的生物！

Turtles, or sea turtles as they’re known in Bedrock edition, are passive aquatic animals found on Minecraft’s coastlines. They’ve been hanging out there, in the sun, since they were added as part of the Update Aquatic in 2017.
海龟在基岩版中又被称为“sea turtle”，它们是一种水生生物，主要生活在 Minecraft 的海岸上。自打它们作为 2017 年水域更新的一部分加入了游戏起，它们就一直在那里晒着太阳。

Turtles need sand to lay their eggs in, which means that you won’t find them on stony or snowy shores. But you will find them in any other beach biome in the Overworld that has access to daylight – usually around the water’s edge. Unusually for Minecraft mobs, turtles are fairly happy on both land and in the water. They’re a little slower on land, but they swim fast!
海龟需要沙子来产卵，这意味着你将不会在石岸以及积雪的沙滩找到它们。但海龟能够出现在主世界其它各个沙滩生物群系 —— 通常它们都会在水边。不同于 Minecraft 的其它生物，海龟在陆地和水中都能怡然自得。它们在陆地上行走很慢，但它们可是游泳健将！

Here’s a fun fact: turtles are one of the few Minecraft animals that can’t be leashed. It’s because they’re kinda grumpy and don’t like to do what other creatures want them to do. But they do like eating, and their favorite food is seagrass, so you can definitely lure them around by waving some seagrass in their vicinity. Foolish turtles!
有一件有趣的事：海龟是 Minecraft 内少数几种不能被拴绳牵引的动物。这是因为它们生性不羁，不愿意做其他生物让它们做的事。但它们热衷于美食，最喜欢的食物是海草，所以只要你在它们视线里跳海草舞，就一定能吸引它们。海龟小笨笨！

Speaking of seagrass, feeding seagrass to two turtles causes them to enter love mode. But turtles are reptiles and don’t give birth to live young. Instead, they lay eggs – and they’ll only do that on the beach where they hatched. Eggs take about four to five in-game days to hatch into baby turtles, which then take another in-game day to grow into adults.
提及海草，向两只海龟喂食海草可以让它们进入求爱模式。但海龟是一种爬行生物，不会直接产下幼崽。相反的，它们会产卵 —— 而且只会在它们被孵化的沙滩上产卵。海龟蛋需要 4 到 5 个游戏日来孵化成小海龟，小海龟则需要另一个游戏日来成长为成年海龟。

During that time, the babies are very vulnerable. Drowned, stray cats, and foxes all love the taste of baby turtles and will hunt them. So keep those babies safe. When they do become adults, they’ll shed the parts of their baby shells as scutes and grow a new shell. If you want a turtle shell of your own, you’ll need to painstakingly reassemble one out of scutes.
在这一时期里，小海龟是非常脆弱的。溺尸、流浪猫和狐狸都深知小海龟的美味，同时会捕食它们。因此请保护这些小海龟的安全。而当它们成长为成年海龟后，它们幼壳的一部分会脱落成碎片，从而发育出一个新壳。如果你想要一个属于自己的海龟壳，那你就需要努力用这些碎片重新组装一个。

On the beaches of the real world, turtles are a much less common sight than they are in Minecraft, though that wasn’t always true. Turtles are pretty ancient creatures, having thrived since the Permian and Triassic eras. But when humans came along, we pretty quickly realized how tasty turtles are, and today they’re the second-most threatened group of species after primates. Of the 360 kinds of turtle that have existed since 1500 AD, more than half are threatened or extinct.
在现实世界的海滩上，海龟并没有 Minecraft 里那样常见，当然也不总是这样。海龟是一种非常古老的生物，从二叠纪和三叠纪开始就在这片大地上繁衍生息。但人类自从出现以后，很快意识到了海龟的美味，现在海龟已经是仅次于灵长类动物的第二大受威胁物种。自公元 1500 年以来存在的 360 种海龟中，超过一半都处于易危和濒危之中。

Image credit: P. Lindgren // CC BY-SA 3.0
图片来源： P.Lindgren // 知识共享 署名-相同方式共享 3.0

Nonetheless, turtles occupy an important role in human culture. In Hindu mythology, the world is carried on top of four enormous elephants that in turn stand on the back of the World Turtle, named Kurma or Kacchapa. World turtles are also found in Native American cultures. They appear in Greek myths, Roman military tactics, Chinese fortune-telling, and Australian Aboriginal art. They’re also popular in comic books and animation. I'm sure you're familiar with Leonardo, Michaelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello!
虽然如此，海龟在人类历史上占有重要的一席之地。在印度的神话中，世界是由四只巨大的大象驮着的，而这四只大象又站在名为“库尔玛”或“卡查帕”的世界龟的背上。在美洲原住民的文化中也有类似的“世界龟”的传说。它们在古希腊的神话、古罗马的战术、古中国的占卜和澳大利亚土著的艺术中也都有登场。另外我敢打赌，你一定听说过莱奥纳多、米开朗基罗、拉斐尔和多纳泰罗的故事！

But the coolest thing about turtles is their lifespan. The oldest living land animal is a Seychelles giant tortoise named Jonathan, living on the island of Saint Helena, who is believed to have been hatched in 1832. That makes him 190 years old, at the time this article was written. While he’s blind and has lost his sense of smell, he’s otherwise pretty healthy and has excellent hearing. No one knows how many more years he’ll live, but if you ask me, he’ll outlive all of us! Keep it up, Jonathan!
对于海龟们来说，最棒的还是它们的寿命。目前世界上最长寿的动物是一只名为乔纳森的塞舌尔巨龟，证据表明它是 1832 年被孵化的。这意味着在这篇文章写成之时，它已经有 190 岁了。虽然他患有眼疾，且失去了嗅觉，他身体的其他部分依然健康，而且他有着绝佳的听力。没人知道他还能活多少年，但要我说，他会比我们所有人都活得长！继续加油，乔纳森！




【氘氚人 译自官网 2023 年 06 月 01 日发布的 Turtle；原作者 Duncan Geere】
【本文排版借助了：SPXX v2.4.14】