侏罗纪搏击俱乐部 第121期:水可载舟亦可覆舟

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　　在它尾巴基部，连接髋部的位置，加斯顿龙有这些锋利的三角形的骨质护甲。

　　In and among themselves, they were pretty nasty weapons.

　　它们本身就是非常恐怖的武器。

　　But looking more closely at them, paleontologists saw something amazing.

　　不过更进一步地观察它们，古生物学家发现了一些令人惊讶的东西。

　　When this dinosaur³ swung its tail from side to side, these things crossed each other and acted like a pair of bone slicing shears⁴.

　　当这种恐龙向两侧摆动尾巴时，这些东西相互交错，就像一对骨头切割剪一样。

　　The fossil evidence indicated that Gastonia was one of the most well protected dinosaurs⁵ ever.

　　化石证据表明加斯顿龙是有史以来防护最好的恐龙。

　　But he had a weakness.

　　不过它也有弱点。

　　This large complement⁶ of body armor made this dinosaur very slow.

　　这么巨大的全身铠甲让这种恐龙行动迟缓。

　　Gastonia would have been a relatively⁷ slow moving plant-eating dinosaur, it probably spent its day wondering around finding vegetation to eat.

　　加斯顿龙是一种移动速度相对较慢的植食恐龙，它很可能整天在周围游荡寻找能吃的植物。

　　Because it was so heavily armored, it could only eat low vegetation, so ferns and cycad plants and low-lying shrubs⁸.

　　因为它身披重甲，只能吃到较低的植物就是蕨类、苏铁类植物和低矮的树丛。

　　Then, the investigation⁹ took an unexpected turn.

　　之后的调查有了意料之外的转折。

　　Lawrence Witmer of Ohio University using CT scans to peer through the armored skulls¹¹ of dinosaurs like Gastonia.

　　俄亥俄大学的劳伦斯·维特莫利用CT扫描来观察加斯顿龙这样的恐龙带甲的头颅内部。

　　What he discovered was intriguing¹².

　　他发现的事情非常有趣。

　　Scientists now know that this "tank" was not an intelligent dinosaur, but had a powerful sense of smell and hearing.

　　科学家们现在知道这种“坦克”不是很聪明的恐龙，但是有很强的嗅觉和听觉能力。

　　When we look at the brain of Ankylosaurs like Gastonia, what we see is still a relatively simple kind of structure.

　　在观察加斯顿龙这类甲龙的脑部时，我们看到的是相对比较简单的结构。

　　One thing that is kind of expanded though is the olfactory¹³ centers, the centers associated with the sense of smell.

　　有一部分比较膨大就是其嗅觉中枢，这部分大脑跟气味感觉相关。

　　They're actually considerably¹⁴ enlarged suggesting that smell was very important to these animals.

　　它们其实相当大，这说明嗅觉对于这些动物来说很重要。

　　We also see, in the inner ear of these animals, that the part associated with hearing was also remarkably¹⁵ well developed suggesting that hearing as well as smell were particularly important.

　　我们还看到，这些动物的内耳，与听觉相关的那部分，同样也相当发达，表明听觉对于它们来说也和嗅觉一样非常重要。

　　But the CT scans uncovered something else.

　　不过CT扫描还揭示了其它情况。

　　The vision centre of the skull¹⁰ showed that Gastonia had poor eyesight.

　　其头颅里的视觉中枢表明加斯顿龙的视力不佳。

　　In the brain, we don't see tremendous expansion of the optic centers, the visual centers associated with processing visual information.

　　在它的脑部，看不到视觉中枢有特别明显的膨大，视觉中枢与处理视觉信号有关。

　　They have a really low head posture¹⁶, these are not animals that can in a sense scan the horizon for predators¹⁸, and so vision really would only be useful at close distances in terms of seeing a predator¹⁷.

　　这些动物的头部体位很低，它们不是在某种意义上能扫视地平线上掠食者的动物，所以就看到掠食者来说，其视觉只有观察近距离时才会有用。

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