万物简史 第502期:多灾多难的生命进程(22)

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Its family survived in formidable fashion for fifty million years, 它的家族横行霸道地存在了5000万年。

yet until a skeleton was discovered in Florida in 1963, we had no idea that it had ever existed. 然而，l963年在美国佛罗里达州发现一副骨骼之前。我们压根儿不知道它存在过。

Which brings us to another reason for our uncertainty² about extinctions: the paltriness³ of the fossil record. 这就引出了我们对灭绝原因缺少把握的另一个原因：贫乏的化石记录。

We have touched already on the unlikelihood of any set of bones becoming fossilized, but the record is actually worse than you might think. 我们已经简单谈到任何一副骨骼变成化石的不可能性，但这类记录的贫乏程度比你想像的还要严重。

Consider dinosaurs⁵. Museums give the impression that we have a global abundance of dinosaur⁴ fossils. In fact, overwhelmingly museum displays are artificial. 以恐龙为例。实际上，绝大部分的博物馆展品都是人造的。

The giant Diplodocus that dominates the entrance hall of the Natural History Museum in London and has delighted and informed generations of visitors is made of plaster, 显赫地放在伦敦自然史博物馆入口处的、为几代游客带来快乐和增长知识的巨大梁龙，完全是用塑料做的，

built in 1903 in Pittsburgh and presented to the museum by Andrew Carnegie. 该模型1903年在匹兹堡建成，由安德鲁·卡内基赠送给该博物馆。

The entrance hall of the American Museum of Natural History in New York is dominated by an even grander tableau⁶: 纽约的美国自然史博物馆的门厅里有个更加气势宏大的场面：

a skeleton of a large Barosaurus defending her baby from attack by a darting⁷ and toothy Allosaurus. 一副巨大的巴罗龙骨骼，在保护自己的幼崽不受一头正张牙舞爪扑过来的异龙的伤害。

It is a wonderfully impressive display — the Barosaurus rises perhaps thirty feet toward the high ceiling — but also entirely⁸ fake. 这是一件令人印象深刻的展品——巴罗龙朝着高高的天花板伸到也许9米的高度——但也完全是赝品。

Every one of the several hundred bones in the display is a cast. 展出的几百根骨头根根都是模型。

Visit almost any large natural history museum in the world, 要是你参观世界上的几乎任何自然史博物馆，

in Paris, Vienna, Frankfurt, Buenos Aires, Mexico City — and what will greet you are antique models, not ancient bones. 巴黎的、维也纳的、法兰克福的、布宜诺斯艾利斯的，还是墨西哥城的——你看到的都是古老的模型，而不是古老的骨头。

 

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