星光海岸的秘密

Moonlight triggers the world’s biggest orgy, strange creatures emerge from the depths, and waves glow blue. 

月光引发了世界上最大的狂欢，奇异的生物从深海中上浮，波浪发出蓝色的荧光。

Some phenomena in the ocean can only be witnessed after dark.

海洋中的一些现象只能在入夜后才能看到。

You may have seen the pictures.

你可能已经见过了这张照片。

It’s night-time in an impossibly exotic location.

这是一个仿佛不可能出现的异乡的夜晚。

 Waves are breaking on the beach.

海浪在沙滩上破碎。

 The water is sparkling with electric blue lights. 

水中却闪耀着蓝色的荧光。

The internet loves an image of a magical-looking bioluminescent bay.

网友们都很喜爱这张魔法般闪烁着蓝色荧光的海滩的照片。

You may also have seen travel bloggers bemoaning the real event as not quite living up the hype.

你也可能见过了旅游博主们叹息真实的景观并没有大肆宣传的那么好看。

Even if the latter is true, bioluminescence (in this case usually caused by planktonic organisms called dinoflagellates) is a pretty amazing natural phenomenon.

就算后者是真的，生物荧光（在这个照片里是由一种叫做鞭毛藻的浮游生物引起的）也是一种美丽奇特的自然现象。

Dinoflagellates emit blue light when disturbed, which is why they can be seen sparkling over wave crests, around boats or when a hand or paddle runs through them.

鞭毛藻受到扰动时会发出蓝色的荧光，因此我们可以在波峰上看到它们的闪耀，或者在船边用手或者桨划水的时候也能看到它们。

These tiny creatures are the most common source of bioluminescence at the ocean’s surface.

这种微小的生物是海面上生物荧光最主要的来源。

So-called bioluminescent bays such as in Puerto Rico and Jamaica are among the best-known places to witness the glow.

所谓的生物荧光海滩比如位于波多黎各或者牙买加的海滩是想要看这种荧光的最佳去处。

 However, the ephemeral phenomenon can be found throughout the ocean where there are dense gatherings of dinoflagellates.

不过，这种短暂的现象也可以在各地的海洋中看到，只要那里也富集有鞭毛藻。

Sometimes dinoflagellates’ population increases rapidly causing blooms, which by day are coloured a less attractive red-brown, sometimes known as red tides. 

有时鞭毛藻的数量剧增会引起水华，白天时看起来就是不那么好看的棕红色了，有时会引起赤潮。

And some, but not all, of these red tides are poisonous. 

其中一些，并不是全部，这种赤潮是有毒的。

Even stranger and rarer than bioluminescent bays are “milky seas”, where continually glowing water stretches for as far as the eye can see.

比生物荧光海岸还要奇特而稀有的叫做“银河海”，那里持续闪光的海浪会延伸到整个视野里。

Milky seas have only been seen a few hundred times since 1915, mainly concentrated around north-western Indian Ocean and near Java, Indonesia.

1915年以来，银河海只被观测到了几百次，主要集中于西北印度洋和印度尼西亚的爪哇岛附近。

They are not caused by dinoflagellates, but are thought to be the result of “bioluminescent bacteria that have accumulated in large numbers near the surface”, explains to Dr Matt Davis, Assistant Professor of Biology, St. Cloud State University in the US, who specialises in bioluminescence.

它们不是由鞭毛藻引起的，而被认为是“生物荧光细菌在海面富集”的结果，马特.戴维斯博士解释道，他是美国圣克劳德州立大学的助理教授，他的专业就是生物荧光。

Reports by sailors over the centuries have described milky seas as a nocturnal whitish glow like a field of snow, but scientists have had little chance to investigate the phenomenon first-hand.

几个世纪以来水手们的传说里将银河海描述成一种像一片雪地一般的夜间的白色闪光，不过科学家们鲜有机会第一手去调查这种现象。

In 2005, researchers analysing archived satellite images found that milky seas could be seen from space and that one satellite had captured images of a huge area of ocean that had displayed the strange glow for three consecutive nights a decade earlier. 

2005年，分析目前的卫星照片的研究者们发现银河海可以从太空看到，其中有一个卫星在十多年前拍到了连续三晚的大片海上出现了奇特的荧光。

Bioluminescence, the emission of visible light by an organism as the result of a natural chemical reaction, is common among marine life such as fishes, squid and molluscs.

生物荧光，是生物因为自然的化学反应而发出的可见光，在海洋动物如鱼，鱿鱼和软体动物中是非常常见的。

 In the deep sea most species are bioluminescent, where it is the main source of light.

深海中的大多数物种都是可以发生物荧光的，这也是那里的主要光源。

In shallower waters, most bioluminescent fish display their lights at night.

在浅海中，大部分生物荧光的鱼只在夜间展示自己的光亮。

“Flashlight fishes have a specialized pouch under their eye that they can rotate to expose the light emitted from these bacteria, and they use this glow at night to hunt for food and communicate,” says Dr Matt Davis.

“闪光鱼在它们的眼镜下部有一个特别的小囊，它可以旋转来发出这些细菌放射的光，它们利用这种光来在夜间捕食和相互交流，”马特.戴维斯博士说。

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