美国国家公共电台 NPR Scientists Unveil Ancient Sea Monsters Found In Angola

 

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

The first line of this next story sounds like it ought to be spoken by the narrator of a movie. When the Atlantic Ocean was young, sea monsters ruled. This is a true story. Some of their bones have turned up along the coast of West Africa. They go on exhibits soon at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., fossils that tell a sometimes-bloody story of birth and death in the ocean. Here's NPR's Christopher Joyce.

CHRISTOPHER JOYCE, BYLINE¹: I've come to the National Museum of Natural History to look for a big, swimming, carnivorous reptile². A section of the oceans exhibit is walled off from view. A sign says, sea monsters unearthed³ - do not enter. A staff member lets me in. Next to a folding table, geology student Yasmin Jackson (ph) is unwrapping boxes full of fossils.

YASMIN JACKSON: These are mostly real bones that we're dealing⁴ with so I have to be very gentle.

JOYCE: Knowing that it's 80 million years old.

JACKSON: Seventy-two million years old.

JOYCE: Sorry.

JACKSON: (Laughter).

JOYCE: These bones are here at the nation's premier⁵ Natural History Museum because they're unusual. They were found in the rocky cliffs of Angola overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Angola is not a country known for fossils. Few scientists have looked there. Half a century of civil war made it too dangerous. But geologically, Angola, on the west coast of Africa, is special. Two-hundred-billion years ago, Africa was part of the supercontinent. Then that continent started unzipping down the middle.

Eventually, Africa and South America drifted apart. The South Atlantic Ocean filled in the gap between them. And then sea creatures moved in. Paleontologist Louis Jacobs from the Southern Methodist University has been digging in Angola since 2005. He says fossils from its coastline tell the story of the ocean's earliest days.

LOUIS JACOBS: And you have an ocean where you didn't have one before, and now you have fossils of these marine⁶ monsters that are found there. So why did that happen, and why is it them that are there?

JOYCE: The marine monsters were mosasaurs - giant, swimming reptiles⁷. To acquainted with mosasaurs, I went to SMU in Dallas. At the paleontology department, Jacobs leads me down into the basement then a long and dark hallway to where his colleague, Michael Polcyn, has been reconstructing a mosasaur from the Angolan bones.

Wow.

JACOBS: I told you that he was putting it together in his living room.

MICHAEL POLCYN: This is my dining room.

JOYCE: Bones of all shapes and sizes sit on shelves. But the eye-catcher is a half-built mosasaur hung up on rods and wires, the sinuous⁸ tail and neck, the rib⁹ cage and a feeble-looking arm.

POLCYN: Let me adjust this.

JOYCE: Polcyn adds what look like elongated¹⁰ fingers to one of the arms. And, voila, it's a front limb, a mosasaur paddle. The big tail provided thrust. The animal's four paddles helped it navigate¹². Mosasaurs looked part-lizard and part-orca but grew up to 50 feet long, about the length of school bus. They probably had scales and a powerful tail fin¹¹ similar to a shark's.

JACOBS: The way mosasaurs move is like lizards¹³, where their bodies flex¹⁴ a lot from side to side.

POLCYN: You can see it was a very optimized¹⁵ swimmer. This was a pursuit predator¹⁶.

JOYCE: There are more rooms and lots more bones. Polcyn says Angola was a mosasaur jackpot.

POLCYN: The first time we set foot there, it was incredible. You couldn't walk one pace without coming across another fossil. The ground was just littered with fossils.

JOYCE: One in particular tells a grisly story. It's a mosasaur skeleton, complete, lying flat on the table just as it was found in the Angolan rock - the looping spine¹⁷ and tail, the head twisted back in death, 3-inch-long teeth, 3-foot-long jaws¹⁸. There are two sets of smaller bones coiled halfway¹⁹ down the beast, as well as some random²⁰ shark's teeth. Jacobs explains what happened.

JACOBS: This is three different mosasaurs in the stomach.

JOYCE: The big one, and two small ones it ate.

JACOBS: And then after the big fella died, you see the shark's teeth from where it was scavenged.

JOYCE: The shark's teeth came out as they ripped the flesh off the dead mosasaur. These and other fossils from Angola will be on view at the new exhibit at the Smithsonian in November then the original bones go back to Angola. Jacobs says their story is more than just how big and scary ancient reptiles could be. It's about how a new ocean and the conditions for new life were created, how trade winds stirred up deep water full of nutrients²¹. The nutrients attracted fish and big turtles, and they attracted even bigger sharks and ultimately giant reptiles.

JACOBS: Geology controls destiny in the sense that biology has to adapt to the stage that it's put on.

JOYCE: It was a drama that might have continued if an asteroid²² hadn't hit the Earth and wiped out the giant reptiles and their dinosaur²³ cousins, opening the door to us, the furry²⁴, little mammals. Christopher Joyce, NPR News.

1 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

2 reptile   

n.爬行动物；两栖动物

参考例句：

• The frog is not a true reptile.青蛙并非真正的爬行动物。
• So you should not be surprised to see someone keep a reptile as a pet.所以，你不必惊奇有人养了一只爬行动物作为宠物。

3 unearthed   

出土的（考古）

参考例句：

• Many unearthed cultural relics are set forth in the exhibition hall. 展览馆里陈列着许多出土文物。
• Some utensils were in a state of decay when they were unearthed. 有些器皿在出土时已经残破。

4 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

5 premier   

adj.首要的；n.总理，首相

参考例句：

• The Irish Premier is paying an official visit to Britain.爱尔兰总理正在对英国进行正式访问。
• He requested that the premier grant him an internview.他要求那位总理接见他一次。

6 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

7 reptiles   

n.爬行动物，爬虫( reptile的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Snakes and crocodiles are both reptiles. 蛇和鳄鱼都是爬行动物。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Birds, reptiles and insects come from eggs. 鸟类、爬虫及昆虫是卵生的。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 sinuous   

adj.蜿蜒的，迂回的

参考例句：

• The river wound its sinuous way across the plain.这条河蜿蜒曲折地流过平原。
• We moved along the sinuous gravel walks,with the great concourse of girls and boys.我们沿着曲折的石径,随着男孩女孩汇成的巨流一路走去。

9 rib   

n.肋骨，肋状物

参考例句：

• He broke a rib when he fell off his horse.他从马上摔下来折断了一根肋骨。
• He has broken a rib and the doctor has strapped it up.他断了一根肋骨，医生已包扎好了。

10 elongated   

v.延长，加长( elongate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Modigliani's women have strangely elongated faces. 莫迪里阿尼画中的妇女都长着奇长无比的脸。
• A piece of rubber can be elongated by streching. 一块橡皮可以拉长。 来自《用法词典》

11 fin   

n.鳍；(飞机的)安定翼

参考例句：

• They swim using a small fin on their back.它们用背上的小鳍游动。
• The aircraft has a long tail fin.那架飞机有一个长长的尾翼。

12 navigate   

v.航行，飞行；导航，领航

参考例句：

• He was the first man to navigate the Atlantic by air.他是第一个飞越大西洋的人。
• Such boats can navigate on the Nile.这种船可以在尼罗河上航行。

13 lizards   

n.蜥蜴( lizard的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Nothing lives in Pompeii except crickets and beetles and lizards. 在庞培城里除了蟋蟀、甲壳虫和蜥蜴外，没有别的生物。 来自辞典例句
• Can lizards reproduce their tails? 蜥蜴的尾巴断了以后能再生吗？ 来自辞典例句

14 flex   

n.皮线，花线；vt.弯曲或伸展

参考例句：

• We wound off a couple of yards of wire for a new lamp flex.我们解开几码电线作为新的电灯花线。
• He gave his biceps a flex to impress the ladies.他收缩他的肱二头肌以吸引那些女士们的目光。

15 optimized   

adj.最佳化的，（使）最优化的v.使最优化，使尽可能有效( optimize的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• We are often asked whether consumer Web sites should be optimized for beginners or intermediates. 我们常常被问到这样的问题：消费类网站究竟应该为新手而优化，还是应该为中间用户而优化？ 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓
• GOOGLE Advertising optimized sequence, greatly increasing the advertising effect. 优化了GOOGLE广告位排列顺序，大大增加了广告效果。 来自互联网

16 predator   

n.捕食其它动物的动物；捕食者

参考例句：

• The final part of this chapter was devoted to a brief summary of predator species.本章最后部分简要总结了食肉动物。
• Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard and a fearsome predator.科摩多龙是目前存在的最大蜥蜴，它是一种令人恐惧的捕食性动物。

17 spine   

n.脊柱，脊椎；(动植物的)刺；书脊

参考例句：

• He broke his spine in a fall from a horse.他从马上跌下摔断了脊梁骨。
• His spine developed a slight curve.他的脊柱有点弯曲。

18 jaws   

n.口部；嘴

参考例句：

• The antelope could not escape the crocodile's gaping jaws. 那只羚羊无法从鱷鱼张开的大口中逃脱。
• The scored jaws of a vise help it bite the work. 台钳上有刻痕的虎钳牙帮助它紧咬住工件。

19 halfway   

adj.中途的，不彻底的，部分的；adv.半路地，在中途，在半途

参考例句：

• We had got only halfway when it began to get dark.走到半路，天就黑了。
• In study the worst danger is give up halfway.在学习上，最忌讳的是有始无终。

20 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。

21 nutrients   

n.（食品或化学品）营养物，营养品( nutrient的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• a lack of essential nutrients 基本营养的缺乏
• Nutrients are absorbed into the bloodstream. 营养素被吸收进血液。 来自《简明英汉词典》

22 asteroid   

n.小行星；海盘车(动物)

参考例句：

• Astronomers have yet to witness an asteroid impact with another planet.天文学家还没有目击过小行星撞击其它行星。
• It's very unlikely that an asteroid will crash into Earth but the danger exists.小行星撞地球的可能性很小，但这样的危险还是存在的。

23 dinosaur   

n.恐龙

参考例句：

• Are you trying to tell me that David was attacked by a dinosaur?你是想要告诉我大卫被一支恐龙所攻击？
• He stared at the faithful miniature of the dinosaur.他凝视著精确的恐龙缩小模型。

24 furry   

adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的

参考例句：

• This furry material will make a warm coat for the winter.这件毛皮料在冬天会是一件保暖的大衣。
• Mugsy is a big furry brown dog,who wiggles when she is happy.马格斯是一只棕色大长毛狗，当她高兴得时候她会摇尾巴。