英语听力文摘 English Digest 382、真的有大脚怪吗？（在线收听）

The Real Bigfoot
真的有大脚怪吗？

Everybody has heard of Bigfoot, the gigantic ape-like creature that supposedly haunts the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Plenty of enthusiasts believe Bigfoot is real, though there isn’t any evidence that would be convincing to a primatologist– a scientist who studies primates, such as apes and humans.

However, there once was a creature that actually resembled what Bigfoot is supposed to look like. That creature was the Asian Gigantopithecus, or “Giant Ape.” And giant it was. Based on the very fragmentary fossil evidence we have, Gigantopithecus stood ten feet tall and weighed over half a ton. A creature like that would tower over any Bigfoot.

Giganto, as it is called for short, seems to have been a bamboo eater, something like modern day panda bears. It first appears in the fossil records we have about six-point-three million years ago and probably only disappeared for good around two hundred thousand years ago.

Why it went extinct no one knows for sure, but a reasonable guess is: us. Humans moved into Giganto’s territory some eight hundred thousand years ago, and within half a million years or so it was gone. Did our early ancestors hunt it to extinction? Did they deplete the bamboo resources themselves? We don’t know. But the evidence makes it look like the real Bigfoot had more to fear from us than we do from him.

大家听说过大脚怪吧，它是在一种常出没于太平洋西北部森林似猿的巨型怪兽。许多热心人士都认为大脚怪是真实存在的，尽管目前并没有任何证据使灵长类动物学家相信。灵长类动物学家是研究灵长类动物的，例如猿和人类。

然而，实际上曾经有一种生物跟大脚怪长得很像。这种生物就是亚洲巨猿，也叫巨人猿。它的确很大。基于我们拥有非常零碎的化石记录，巨猿身高十英尺，体重超过半吨。像这样的生物远远高过大脚怪。

巨猿简称希甘托，这个名字听上去好像是吃竹子的，就像现代的熊猫。它第一次出现在化石纪录中是630万年前，并且消失的时间大概在20万年前。

巨猿为什么会灭绝，没有人确切地知道。但是有一种合理的猜测：我们人类。人类大约在80万年前迁入巨猿的居住地，大约在100万年内它们就消失了。是我们早期的祖先狩猎导致巨猿灭绝的吗？是巨猿耗尽竹资源的吗？我们无从知晓。但种种迹象表明大脚怪更惧怕我们人类，而不是人类惧怕大脚怪。

注：大脚怪，又叫“沙斯夸支”，是在美国和加拿大发现但未证实的一种似猿的巨型怪兽。在北美的印第安人中，早就流传着这种神秘怪兽的传说。但确凿的足迹最早是在1811年发现的。当时探险家大卫·汤普逊从加拿大

的杰斯普镇横洛矶山脉前往美国的哥伦比亚河河口，途中看到一串人形的巨大脚印，每个长30厘米，宽18厘米。由于汤普逊没有见到这种动物，只看到大得吃人的脚印。他报道了这一消息后，人们就用“大脚怪”来称呼

这种怪兽。从此以后，关于发现大脚怪或其脚印的消息络绎不绝，至少有750人自称他们见到了大脚怪，还有更多的人见到了巨大的脚印。虽然不少科学家认为大脚怪是虚妄之谈，但有些报道不能不引起人们的注意