鳕鱼的寿命

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HINTS:
Cefas
Dr Carl O'Brien
Sunday Times
Dr Tom Webb
Fishbase
North Sea
Barents Sea
主持&校对：lsy34
翻译&注解：cherryxyr
答疑：阿焰
口语点评：fancyfrances
口语节目链接：http://bulo.hujiang.com/menu/2120/item/665474/But to quote Cefas, the journalists misunderstood the data. For some reason, they decided to class an adult cod as over 13. But that's not merely an adult cod, it's an ancient cod. Now we shouldn't be surprised that there are very few cod over 13, just as we aren't surprised there are hardly any humans older than 100. Here's Dr Carl O'Brien from Cefas.
"Cod start to mature at ages one and two, and they're fully mature by age six."
So where did the newspaper get the idea that cods reach adulthood at 13? Well in the same article, the Sunday Times states that cod can live to 25, which implies a 13-year-old cod is merely middle-aged, looking forward to paying off its mortgage, and getting its kids off to university. Dr Tom Webb thinks the journalists got that 25 figure from a website called Fishbase. He says that although Fishbase is a pretty reliable source of fish-related information, the idea that cod in the North Sea live to 25 is, well, a bit of a red herring.
"For each species it has a front page with some headline statistics, for instance maximum age which for cod is given as 25. But when you delve into where those statistics come from, it's all very well reference in Fishbase. And you can actually find that the estimate of 25 was not from a North Sea cod, it was from a cod in the Barents Sea. And the only estimate for a North Sea cod of maximum age is 11."不过，Cefas表示记者们误解了这一数据。由于某些原因，他们把13岁以上的鳕鱼归为成年鳕鱼。但是13岁对鳕鱼而言不仅仅是成年，反而可以算做是老年了。正如同我们并不惊讶于很少有人能活过100岁一样，我们也不需对没有多少鳕鱼能活过13岁感到惊讶。Cefas的卡尔·奥布莱恩(Carl O'Brien)博士说道：
“鳕鱼在一两岁时开始步入成熟期，六岁正式成年。”
那么，记者们怎么会认为鳕鱼到了13岁才进入成年期呢？在同一篇文章中，《星期日泰晤士报》(The Sunday Times)谈及鳕鱼的寿命能达到25岁，这说明一条13岁的鳕鱼只能算刚步入中年，盼着能早日还清贷款，把孩子们送进大学深造。汤姆·韦布(Tom Webb)博士认为记者们是从一个名叫世界鱼类数据库(FishBase)的网站获得上述数据的。他说，尽管世界鱼类数据库上的信息十分可靠，北海的鳕鱼能活到25岁还是与实际情况有所出入。
“每一个种类的鱼都有一个主页，标题上记载着一些数据，例如，鳕鱼的最长寿命是25岁。这些数据的来源在世界鱼类数据库上标注得很清楚，如果你仔细查看则可发现能活到25岁的并不是北海鳕鱼，而是巴伦支海鳕鱼，据估计，北海鳕鱼最多能活到11岁。”