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【DavidShi译文】食肉动物避开了比较聪明的猎物，如具有异常大的脑，并更易躲过攻击的猴子。

生命科学院的苏珊·雪尔兹博士集中研究了非洲和南美洲的食肉动物，诸如美洲虎、黑猩猩、美洲豹和美洲狮。雪尔兹博士发现，和脑较大的猎物相比，脑较小的猎物，如小羚羊、猫鼬和红河猪更容易遭到食肉动物的攻击。

脑较小的动物缺乏动作的灵活性，它们和脑较大的物种相比，或许更不容易发展出新的策略来躲避食肉动物。

雪尔兹博士说：“我们通过恰当地考虑这些结果后发现，动物的聪明有助于它们避免和摆脱危险，脑较大的黑猩猩就极少遭到食肉动物的捕食。”

“一些动物避免被捕食的能力可能是促进一些物种进化出大容积脑的一个因素，这支持了一些传统理论，也就是在发展成社会关系和使用工具的过程中，躲避被捕食的能力起了重要作用。”

来源：利物浦大学

【英文原文】

Predators prefer to hunt small-brained prey

They avoid more intelligent prey such as monkeys which have exceptionally large brains and are more capable of escaping attacks.

 The study, carried out by Dr Susanne Shultz, from the School of Biological Sciences, focused on predators from Africa and South America such as the jaguar, chimpanzee, leopard and puma. Dr Shultz found that prey with a small brain such as small antelope, mongooses and the red river hog were more susceptible to attacks by predators compared with larger-brained prey. The report showed a strong correlation between the brain size of the prey and the predatory bias towards it.

Animals with small brains lack behavioural flexibility and are probably less capable of developing new strategies to escape predators, compared with larger-brained species.

Dr Shultz said: "When these findings are put into perspective, it makes sense that being clever should help individuals avoid or escape danger – the larger-brained chimpanzees rarely feature in the diets of predators."

"Some animals' ability to avoid being eaten by predators may be a contributing factor to the evolution of large brains across some species, adding to conventional theories which argue this is important for developing social relationships and using tools."

Source : University of Liverpool