英语听力：2013-06-09 完美捕食 Perfect Predators —17
时间：2014-02-12 06:44:15
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（单词翻译）
Mighty carnivores ruled a dangerous world in the Cretaceous Period. But being a super predator1 like Tyrannosaurus Rex is not easy.
Just surviving to
adulthood2 is a major
feat3, one that takes a decade or more of
killing4 and eating some of the meanest creatures that walk the earth.
The hardest role in the
ecosystem5 is top predator. Most of the time, you are almost starving.
A carnivore knows that no
prey6 animal gives up easily. Herbivores fight fearlessly because their lives depend on it.
These are animals that have defenses.
Ankylosaurus is a slow,
lumbering7 plant eater. Its long slow body is covered in bony plates, and its tail packs a punch.
Ankylosaurus itself has a huge mass of bone on the end of its tail and there’s no leg bone of Tyrannosaurus that would stand it.
Predators8 of the Cretaceous are gigantic by our standard. Yet in
stature9, they’re clearly outclassed by plant eaters. Carnivores though have one significant advantage—they got brains.
The armored
dinosaurs10 are general, and Ankylosaurus, no exception here, were not bright dinosaurs.
They’re probably the dumbest dinosaurs ever lived. Their brains are really small for the size of their heads and their bodies.
With
preys11 so stupid, predators don’t need to be geniuses.
Ultimately, you really only need to be as smart or smarter than the animals that you are around.
7 tons of Tyrannosaurus Rex can do a lot of damage, but a little extra brain can make a lot of difference.
A T-Rex’s brain was actually a bit larger than a banana.
T-Rex’s brain is just a thousandth of its body size, twenty times less brain power than human’s. Yet it’s significantly larger than those of its plant-eater prey.
What we see in T-Rex is an advance. Its carnivore capabilities were greater, its ability to …
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