all whales migrate to molt

Some people travel across oceans to seek warm, healing waters in spas or coastal resorts. It turns out that whales are likely making their annual migrations for much the same reason: to maintain healthy skin, according to a new study out today.

人们有时候为了找一个更温暖健康舒适的环境，不惜穿越大洋，去往大洋彼岸的温泉度假村。一项新的有研究表明，鲸鱼每年的迁徙，可能有着同样的类似的原因-保持他们皮肤的健康。

Scientists have long wondered why whales—baleens, such as humpbacks and blues, and toothed whales, such as sperm and killer whales—travel up to 18,840 kilometers every year between their feeding grounds in polar waters and warmer, tropical seas. Previously, researchers thought that after feeding in the Arctic or Antarctic, whales traveled to the tropics to give birth far from their usual predators.

科学家门一直想弄明白，为什么鲸鱼们（长须鲸，齿鲸，蓝鲸，抹香鲸，虎鲸）每年可以在极地到热带海洋之间长途奔袭18840公里进行觅食生活

To find out the real reason for the migrations, researchers led by Robert Pitman, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University’s Marine Mammals Institute, deployed 62 satellite tags on the four types of killer whales that inhabit Antarctic waters. After tracking the whales over eight southern summers, the scientists found that some journeyed as many as 9400 kilometers to the western South Atlantic Ocean, making the round trip in merely
42 days. But they didn’t do it to give birth: Photographs taken by the team revealed（揭示）newborn（新生） killer（杀手） whales（鲸）（虎鲸） in Antarctic（南极） waters. Strike（敲打撞击） one for the “feed-in-the-cold, breed-in-the-warmth” hypothesis（猜想假说）.

为了找出他们迁徙的真正原因，俄勒冈州立大学海洋哺乳动物研究所的海洋生态学家伯特·皮特曼（Robert Pitman）领导的研究小组在在南极海域的四种虎鲸身上装了62个卫星标签。在对这些鲸鱼进行了8个夏季的追踪之后，科学家们发现有些鲸鱼游到了南大西洋西部9400公里的地方，往返仅需42天。但他们并不是为了繁育后代：研究小组拍摄的照片发现了在南极水域新生的虎鲸，给“在寒冷中喂养，在温暖中繁殖”的假说一个狠狠的耳光。

The researchers（研究员） also knew that whales, like humans, shed outer skin cells continuously. “You can track humpback whales migrating up Australia’s eastern coast just by following the trail of raining epidermal cells they’re shedding,” Pitman says. But in the cold Antarctic seas, the whales are apparently unable to molt. Instead, they build up a thick, yellow film of microscopic diatoms on their skin. High concentrations of diatoms can accumulate potentially harmful bacteria, adversely affecting both killer and baleen whales.

研究人员还发现，它们的外层皮肤细胞也会和人一样连续不断的脱落。皮特曼说：“你可以通过追踪座头鲸脱落的表皮细胞，追踪它们向澳大利亚东海岸迁移的情况。”但在寒冷的南极海域，鲸鱼显然无法蜕皮，相反，它们的皮肤上形成一层由微小硅藻构成的厚厚的黄色薄膜。高浓度的硅藻可以积累潜在的有害细菌，无论虎鲸还是须鲸都将产生不利影响。

The yellow-skinned killer whales led（带领引领） some of the team’s researchers to propose another explanation in 2012. To conserve（保持） body heat in cold Antarctic waters, they hypothesized（假定）, killer whales divert（趋使） blood flow away from their skin. This causes a slowdown in skin cell regeneration and ultimately drives the whales to warmer waters, where their metabolism—and presumably—their molting, ratchets up. The new study suggests（表明） that not only killer whales, but all whales（鲸鱼） migrate（迁徙） to molt（换羽脱毛）, the researchers report in Marine Mammal Science.

2012年，黄皮肤的虎鲸使得研究小组的一些研究人员提出了另一种假说。他们假设，为了在寒冷的南极水域保存体温，虎鲸将血液从皮肤上转移开，这会导致皮肤细胞再生速度减慢，最终将鲸鱼推向更温暖的水域，在那里它们的新陈代谢和蜕皮都会加快。研究人员在《海洋哺乳动物科学》上发表报告说，新研究表明，不仅虎鲸，而且所有鲸鱼都会因为换皮而迁徙。