The Dinosaur Detectives of Real-Life Jurassic Parks | Martin Lockley | TED

34,067 views ・ 2023-06-05

TED


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翻译人员: Yip Yan Yeung 校对人员: Jacky He
00:04
I'm a paleontologist,
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我是一名古生物学家,
00:05
which means I have what I'm told is every seven-year-old's dream job.
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我知道这是每一位 七岁小朋友的梦想职业。
00:09
(Laughter)
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(笑声)
00:11
But I don't spend my time digging up the remains of dead animals.
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但我不是花大把时间挖掘动物遗骸,
00:15
Instead, I'm on the trail of clues left by dinosaurs
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而是寻找恐龙
00:18
and other extinct animals
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和其他已灭绝动物
00:20
when they were active and very much alive.
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存活时留下的痕迹。
00:24
If I were to share with you some tracking tips,
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如果我与大家分享 一些追踪的小提示,
00:27
could you also become master trackers and find these same clues?
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你能成为追踪大师, 找出这些线索吗?
00:31
Why not?
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为什么不呢?
00:33
Fifty years ago, most paleontologists thought that fossil footprints,
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50 多年前,很多古生物学家 认为化石足迹,
00:37
which we also call trace fossils,
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也名叫“遗迹化石”,
00:40
were rare and unimportant.
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是罕见且无价值的。
00:42
In fact, some scientific journals actually rejected papers on fossil footprints
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实际上,有些科学期刊拒收了 研究化石足迹的论文,
00:48
without even sending them out for review.
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甚至不将其送去评审。
00:51
And this was because at that time, it was mostly all about bones.
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这是因为当时基本都是关于骨化石。
00:56
And you can see this by just looking at how many dinosaur skeletons there are
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看看世界各地的博物馆里 放着多少具恐龙骨架
01:00
in museums around the world.
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就很明显了。
01:03
But sometimes these bones don't tell us quite as much as we might think.
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但有时这些骨头并不能 告诉我们所想象那么多的信息。
01:11
Take a look at your own body.
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看看你自己的身体。
01:12
You've got one skeleton, right?
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你也有骨架,对吧?
01:14
But how much could we really learn about you
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但是你对自己
01:17
and all your day-to-day activities
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和日常活动的了解
01:18
just by looking at your bones alone?
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有多少仅仅是通过 研究你的骨头得出的?
01:22
Not much, perhaps.
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也许没多少吧。
01:26
Fossil footprints, therefore, help us to bring these bones alive.
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所以,化石足迹使我们得以 让这些骨头重获新生。
01:31
They are the nearest thing we really have to motion pictures
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它们是最接近灭绝动物
01:34
or movies of extinct animals.
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真实影像的东西。
01:38
So there's a big difference between the study of fossil footprints
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研究化石足迹和遗迹化石 与骨化石之间
01:44
or trace fossils and bones.
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有着很大的区别。
01:47
For example, imagine a dinosaur track site the size of a football field
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比如,想象有一个 足球场这么大的恐龙遗址,
01:52
with 5,000 or maybe even 10,000 fossil footprints.
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有五千甚至一万个化石足迹。
01:57
This is direct evidence of the activity of dozens,
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这是好多头,
02:02
possibly hundreds of dinosaurs going about their daily activity.
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也许是上百头恐龙 日常在此活动的明显证据。
02:08
Sites like this give us dinosaur detectives
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这样的遗址是我们“恐龙侦探”的
02:12
the ultimate CSI challenge.
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终极“犯罪现场调查”挑战。
02:15
And so it's no wonder
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那么著名的
02:16
that the famous Sherlock Holmes once said,
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夏洛克·福尔摩斯 曾经这样说便不奇怪了,
02:19
“There’s no branch of detective science so important and so much neglected
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“侦探学的各个分支中, 没有比追踪足迹这项技术
02:25
as the art of tracing footsteps.”
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更重要却被人忽略的了。”
02:28
He understood.
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他是理解的。
02:29
He fully understood the importance of fossil footprints
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他完全理解化石足迹
02:33
in reconstructing the activity and behavior
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在还原已经离开案发现场的
02:37
of track makers
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目标活动与行为中的重要性。
02:40
that had left the scene of the crime.
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02:42
Fossil footprints bring animals back to life, then.
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化石足迹使得动物“复活“。
02:46
Today, I'm on the trail of a T-Rex,
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目前,我在追踪一只霸王龙,
02:48
tomorrow I'm tracking a Stegosaurus.
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明天,我又去追踪剑龙。
02:51
The living animal can walk, run, hop, skip, jump,
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活的动物能奔走跑跳、
02:58
dig a burrow, excavate a nest.
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钻洞、造窝。
03:01
Tracks will tell us the direction an animal's going in,
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足迹可以告诉我们 一只动物的去向,
03:05
whether it was small or large, a juvenile or an adult.
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不论是小是大、 幼年还是成年。
03:11
Tracks of fast-moving dinosaurs can even tell us
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敏捷恐龙的足迹 甚至能够显示
03:14
that they could out-sprint Usain Bolt at 30 miles per hour.
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它们以每小时 30 英里的速度超过 尤塞恩·博尔特 (Usain Bolt)。
03:19
Tracks may also tell us
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足迹也能告诉我们
03:22
if an animal was limping or injured
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一只动物是否是跛脚,受伤的,
03:26
or whether it was traveling alone or in a group.
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是独自出行还是集体行动。
03:30
Tracks, therefore played a pivotal role
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所以,足迹在我们近年来
03:33
in what we call the dinosaur renaissance of recent years.
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所谓的“恐龙文艺复兴”中 扮演了至关重要的角色。
03:38
This is when dinosaurs got a sophisticated makeover
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这时,恐龙被重新认识,
03:42
and they were no longer regarded as stupid, defunct failures.
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不再是愚蠢、无能的次品;
03:49
Instead, they were transformed into dynamic, athletic,
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相反,它们摇身一变 成为生动、健壮、
03:52
intelligent movie stars.
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聪明的电影明星。
03:54
I've probably found and studied
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几年间,我大概 已经找到并研究了
03:57
a few hundred fossil footprint sites over the years.
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几百个化石足迹地点。
04:00
So let me take you on a little field trip to one of my favorite locations,
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我想请大家一起踏上旅途, 前往我最钟爱的地区之一——
04:04
South Korea.
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韩国。
04:06
Here, on the shores of South Korea, we see these rocky steps
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这儿,在韩国的海岸上, 我们看到这些石板,
04:12
and each one represents a mini landscape
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而每一块代表着一亿年前的
04:16
a hundred million years old.
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微型地貌。
04:19
If we look at this first surface,
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在这片表面上,
04:22
we'll see one of those fast-moving theropods
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可以看出有一头 行动迅速的兽脚亚目恐龙
04:24
heading off to the north at high speed.
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正高速向北边前进。
04:26
On the next level,
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向上一层,
04:28
we see a series of parallel trackways
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我们可以看到一系列平行足迹,
04:31
representing the dinosaurs we call Brontosaurus.
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来自我们所称的“雷龙”。
04:36
They were probably subadults, not fully grown,
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它们可能处于亚成体阶段, 还没有完全成熟,
04:39
but they were still larger than baby elephants.
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但仍比大象幼崽要大。
04:44
On the next level,
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再往上一层,
04:46
we see the tracks of thousands of birds.
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我们可以看到许多只鸟的足迹。
04:50
These are only one inch long.
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它们只有一英寸长,
04:54
But they're indistinguishable from the tracks of a modern sandpiper
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但它们与现代鹬 和湖边的鸻
04:57
or a plover on a lake shore.
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留下的足迹别无二致。
05:02
Up on the next level,
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更上一层,
05:03
we see another trackway of a giant.
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我们看到了另一头巨型动物的踪迹。
05:06
This is an animal with a footprint three feet in diameter.
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这只动物的足迹直径为三英尺。
05:10
It must have weighed 10 tons and been 100 feet long.
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它应该重达 10 吨, 长达 100 英尺。
05:15
On the next level,
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继续往上,
05:17
we find the extraordinary trackway of a bipedal crocodile.
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我们看到双足鳄鱼 留下的特别足迹。
05:22
These are extremely rare,
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这类鳄鱼非常少见,
05:24
and they probably looked like the carnivorous dinosaurs
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看起来可能像肉食恐龙,
05:27
and were just as ferocious at 15 feet long.
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并且长达 15 英尺, 同样地凶暴。
05:31
Lastly, we step up one more level and we have the tiny tracks of a lizard,
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我们最后再往上一层, 看到蜥蜴留下的细小足迹,
05:37
and next to it the tracks of a heron-like bird.
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旁边的是来自类似鹭的 鸟类的足迹。
05:40
This heron might have been a lizard-eater.
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这只鹭也许以蜥蜴为食。
05:43
Well, we haven't walked that far along the shoreline,
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我们沿着海岸线没走多远,
05:46
but we still stepped up through 1,000 years,
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但穿过了一千年,
05:49
represented by five or six layers of strata.
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五六层地层。
05:54
Each surface is a mini landscape.
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每个表面是个微型地貌。
05:58
Each surface is a time-lapse frame
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每一层都是一帧延时摄影,
06:02
in a documentary about life
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沿着一亿多年的韩国湖岸
06:06
along a 100-million-year-old Korean lakeshore.
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所展现的生命纪录片。
06:10
When we go around this next headland,
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我们在这个海角兜兜转的时候,
06:12
we run into a group of schoolchildren with clipboards and tape measures,
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遇见了一队小学生, 带着写字板和卷尺,
06:17
and they're busy estimating the size and speed
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忙着通过足迹估计 各种恐龙的大小和速度。
06:20
of a dozen different dinosaurs from their tracks.
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06:23
Their young teacher is a paleontologist.
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他们那位年轻的老师 是一名古生物学家。
06:26
She studied fossil footprints for her master's degree,
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她在硕士期间研究了化石足迹,
06:30
and since she graduated,
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在她毕业后,
06:32
this area has become a national natural monument.
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这一带变成了国家级自然遗址。
06:37
And so above us,
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在我们之上,
06:39
we see a huge new dinosaur museum
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那是一座新建的 大型恐龙博物馆,
06:43
and arching up the huge neck of a stainless steel sauropod
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一只不锈钢蜥脚龙或 雷龙的巨大脖颈伸展着,
06:49
or Brontosaurus,
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06:50
looming over a courtyard studded with dinosaur tracks.
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俯瞰着布满恐龙足迹的后院。
06:57
This area has also been designated the Korean Cretaceous Dinosaur Coast,
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这一块地域也被命名为 “韩国白垩纪恐龙海岸”,
07:04
or the KCDC.
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即 KCDC。
07:07
Let's take another field trip
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我们踏上另一场旅途,
07:09
and we'll find ourselves in Colorado.
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来到科罗拉多洲。
07:12
Meet my friends Ken and Jason.
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见见我的朋友肯(Ken) 和杰森(Jason)。
07:17
They're not paleontologists,
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他们不是古生物学家,
07:18
but they know the difference between a bobcat track
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但他们也能快速分辨
07:21
or a coyote track if they see one.
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山猫与郊狼的足迹。
07:24
These two lads have actually found more fossil footprints sites
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这两位兄弟发现的化石足迹遗址
07:27
than most professional paleontologists,
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比大多数专业古生物学家都多,
07:30
and that's because they've learned how and where to look.
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这是因为他们知道 怎么样、上哪儿去找。
07:33
As they say, just observe and you'll see a lot.
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他们说,观察吧, 你会看到很多东西的。
07:39
We're looking at these extraordinary traces.
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我们看着这些奇特的足迹。
07:42
They're very puzzling.
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它们让人很迷惑。
07:43
What are they?
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这些是什么呢?
07:45
They looked like they might be digging traces.
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看起来是挖掘的痕迹。
07:48
Long story short, we figure out that these are the traces
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长话短说,我们发现这些是
07:52
left by dinosaurs excavating what are called pseudo nests.
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恐龙挖掘伪巢时留下的痕迹。
07:59
It turns out that these particular dinosaurs
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原来这些特殊的恐龙
08:03
are the ancestors of modern birds,
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是现代鸟类的祖先;
08:04
and they liked to show off their prowess as nest builders
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它们喜欢在繁殖季节炫耀自己
高超的筑巢技巧。
08:11
during the breeding season.
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08:14
This is an extraordinary discovery
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这是一个非比寻常的发现,
08:17
because it’s practically a dinosaurian lover’s lane.
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因为这可被比作恐龙的 情人小径。
08:21
It's a rendezvous for dinosaurian trysts,
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这是恐龙的幽会地点,
08:24
a rendezvous for lovebirds.
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爱情鸟的碰头地点。
08:27
What's also interesting is that paleontologists,
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更有趣的是 古生物学家们
08:31
once they learned that these particular dinosaurs
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知道了这类恐龙
08:35
were the ancestors of modern birds,
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是现代鸟类的祖先后,
08:37
they wrote hundreds of scientific papers speculating, and I say speculating,
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写下了上百份学术论文“推测”, 我说是“推测”,
08:42
on whether they used their colored crests and colored feathers to show off
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这些恐龙是否在 繁殖季节利用自己的
08:49
during the breeding season.
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彩色鸟冠和羽毛炫耀。
08:52
They probably did show off.
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也许是这样。
08:55
But here at our feet,
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但在我们的脚边,
08:57
we actually have the first physical evidence
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这是第一片 恐龙求偶的实体证据。
09:01
of dinosaur courtship.
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09:03
And what's more, it tells us
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这还反映出
09:06
that this behavior went back for a hundred million years.
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此行为可以追溯到上亿年前。
09:09
So males showing off to females
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雄性向雌性炫耀,
09:11
or partners showing off to one another,
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或者配偶互相炫耀,
09:13
it's nothing new.
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没什么新奇的。
09:15
My dad was actually an ornithologist
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我的父亲就是一名鸟类学家,
09:19
and he studied the behavior of modern birds
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他研究了现代鸟类
09:24
during their frenzied, energetic activity in the breeding season.
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在繁殖季节激情狂热的 活动中的行为。
09:28
He'd be absolutely astonished by this kind of evidence
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他一定会对这类恐龙行为的
09:33
of fossil behavior among dinosaurs.
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化石证据感到惊奇。
09:38
Imagine for a minute these little birds scratching in the sand
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想象一下, 小鸟在沙子上经过,
09:42
and how different it would be to see a giant,
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这与一头巨型
09:47
2,000-pound carnivorous dinosaur gouging huge scoops in the substrate.
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2000 磅的肉食恐龙在地层上 踩出巨坑的差别。
09:54
Imagine the hormonal cries and the frenzied roars.
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想象一下求偶的叫声和歇斯底里的咆哮。
09:59
This seems newsworthy.
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这似乎是有新闻价值的。
10:01
We predict that it will be more than just another report
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我们预测这将不单单是 有关恐龙发现的
10:05
of a dinosaur discovery.
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另一篇报告而已。
10:08
And sure enough,
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没错,
10:09
we make the lead on the "Nature" journal website
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我们确实登上了 《自然》期刊的网站首页,
10:13
and we get into the monologues of the late night talk show comedians.
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我们也在深夜 脱口秀中被提及。
10:19
(Laughter)
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(笑声)
10:20
I'd be rich if I had a dollar for every person
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如果每个告诉我长大后想成为
10:25
who told me that they really wish they'd been a paleontologist
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古生物学家的人都给我一美元,
10:28
when they grew up.
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那我得发财了。
10:30
I'd also do OK if I had a dollar for every fossil footprint I found.
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如果我每发现一处化石足迹 就得到一美元,我也会过得不错。
10:35
But knowing that the Earth's bedrock is full of these treasures,
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但既然知道地球的基岩 充满着这些宝藏,
10:40
my motto is quite simple:
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我的座右铭很简短:
10:41
Just keep on tracking, keep on exploring.
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持续地追寻,持续地探索。
10:46
But the real satisfaction comes from the thrill
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不过真正的满足感来源于
10:50
of knowing that I can find these sites,
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知道我能找到这些遗迹,
10:53
that my friends and colleagues can find these sites,
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我的朋友同事们 能找到这些遗迹,
10:56
that people like you can find these sites
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像在座各位的大众 也可以找到这些遗址的欣喜,
11:00
and that they have become valued
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知道它们会成为受保护、
11:03
and protected institutions or destinations.
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具有价值的机构或地点。
11:09
It's very important that these landscapes,
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这些地貌,这些古老的地貌
11:12
these ancient landscapes are preserved because they are actual Jurassic parks.
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受到保护至关重要, 因为它们是现实中的侏罗纪公园。
11:19
They are places where dinosaurs and extinct animals lived and loved
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这是恐龙和灭绝的动物生存、择偶
11:25
and fought for survival.
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并为生存而拼搏的地方。
11:29
Just as we protect sites like Stonehenge or Pompeii
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像我们保护巨石阵、庞贝古城
11:33
or the Grand Canyon,
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和大峡谷这般,
11:35
we need to protect these sites for the future.
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我们该将这些遗址保留至今后。
11:39
This is what we call our geoheritage.
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这是我们所谓的“地质遗产”。
11:42
It is a memory,
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它是记忆,
11:44
and it's vitally important that we preserve it
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而我们为以后七代七岁多的恐龙侦探
11:47
for the next seven generations of seven-year-old dinosaur trackers.
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保存它至关重要。
11:55
Thank you very much.
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非常感谢。
11:56
(Applause)
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(掌声)
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