60秒科学:Mini T. Rex Recovered

（单词翻译）

Mini T. Rex Recovered
In a study in the journal Science, researchers announce the discovery of a dinosaur¹ 125 million years older and one-nintieth the size of T. Rex, but having virtually the same body plan as the giant dino. Cynthia Graber reports.

Ask any young dinosaur fanatic² about the mighty³ Tyrannosaurus rex and you’ll probably get a fairly accurate description: huge reptile⁴, big head, powerful jaws⁶, tiny little arms. Scientists had thought that the animal evolved its bizarre proportions as it grew to its gargantuan⁷ stature⁸. But in this week’s issue of the journal Science, paleontologist Paul Sereno describes a newly discovered miniature tyrannosaurid that evolved millions of years earlier—and has all the attributes of the larger one.

The tiny dino had been excavated⁹ in Mongolia illegally and sold to a private collector. He contacted Sereno to evaluate the preserved tyrannosaurid. Sereno agreed to do so if the dinosaur was donated to science, and eventually returned to China.

The dinosaur is about nine feet long and had an estimated weight of only 150 pounds. But it’s all there—the tiny arms, the huge head, the large teeth and muscular jaw⁵. A hundred-twenty-five million years later, that animal’s descendants had ballooned into an almost exact replica¹⁰ more than 90 times larger. Sereno and his colleagues say the body plan must have been a successful structure for hunting prey—and ultimately thrilling dinosaur lovers everywhere.

—Cynthia Graber