对于过去的存在，无论是生物还是历史，我们永远都是在想象中拼凑。

munched on：津津有味地咀嚼

snapped their jaws at insects：咬住昆虫

performed elaborate courtship rituals：进行复杂的求爱仪式

come to grips with：认真对待

恐龙存活并繁荣了1.65亿年，远比现代人类在地球上游荡的30万年要长。这种生物比我们在童年的书中看到的要多样化得多，而且非常怪异。

科学家们已经确定了大约900种恐龙——尽管还有更多的潜在物种，古生物学家们还没有足够的骨骼，或者化石保存得不够好，无法真正将它们区分开来。还有很多很多的物种存在——一项估计显示有5万到50万个物种，但我们可能永远也找不到它们的化石残骸。

如此多的物种能够存在，是因为它们高度专门化，这意味着不同类型的恐龙有不同的食物来源，可以在相同的栖息地生存，而不会相互竞争。

当然，值得指出的是，许多你可能熟悉的恐龙并不是作为一个群体生活在一起。剑龙和霸王龙从未共存过，相隔了八千万年的进化。事实上，剑龙和霸王龙间隔的时间要比霸王龙和你间隔的时间还要长。

恐龙有各种形状和大小。事实上，近年来一些最令人兴奋的发现都很小。2016年，一种只有麻雀大小的恐龙的尾巴在一块琥珀中被发现，它甚至可以在你的手掌上跳舞。

新的证据极大地改变了研究人员观察和感知恐龙的方式。虽然有些恐龙确实有爬行类鳞片皮肤，很多没有，而且更像鸟。

1996年，一名农民在中国辽宁省挖井时发现了一块化石，震惊了古生物学界。中华龙鸟的头部、背部和尾部保存了一些棕色的毛茸茸的东西。古生物学家将它们描述为原始羽毛——这引发了激烈的争论。但现在人们普遍认为许多恐龙都有皮毛或羽毛。

虽然许多长羽毛的恐龙都很小，但也有一些，比如羽龙(yutyranus)很大：这种30英尺长的恐龙身上覆盖着纤细的羽毛。多亏了这些发现，科学家们现在相信，在我们后院扑扇着翅膀的鸟类直接是从小型兽脚亚目恐龙进化而来的。

它们较小的体型和飞行能力可能帮助它们在6600万年前撞击墨西哥海岸的城市大小的小行星中幸存下来，那场小行星使大多数恐龙灭绝。

羽毛不仅仅是一种恐龙外形上的变化，它们可以揭示关于恐龙颜色的有趣细节——一些曾经被认为是不可能知道的事情——比如它们生活的栖息地。通过与现存鸟类的黑色素体进行比较，科学家们可以分辨出羽毛可能的原始颜色。以中华龙鸟为例，化石中较暗的部分是锈褐色或姜黄色，其余部分被认为是白色。

对其他恐龙的类似研究表明，它们的颜色令人惊讶地明亮：例如，小盗龙是一种奇怪的恐龙，有四个翅膀，它的羽毛有光泽，彩虹般的光泽，而鹦鹉龙的背部是黑色的，下腹部是浅色，这种不同颜色之间的柔和渐变表明，它生活在一个封闭的栖息地，如森林。

那么，为什么有如此多的人不相信长有羽毛、毛茸茸的恐龙呢?温瑟尔将此归咎于《侏罗纪公园》系列电影以及它对凶猛爬行动物杀手的描绘。“《侏罗纪公园》有巨大的影响力。这个故事是如此的引人入胜。你不能不信《侏罗纪公园》。”

What we’ve been getting wrong about dinosaurs

By Katie Hunt, CNN

Updated 0947 GMT (1747 HKT) September 21, 2021
(CNN)Defined by their disappearance dinosaurs might appear to be evolutionary failures. Not so.

Dinosaurs survived and thrived for 165 million years — far longer than the roughly 300,000 years modern humans have so far roamed the planet.
They lived on every continent, munched on^[1] plants, snapped their jaws at insects^[2], itched from fleas, suffered from disease, got into fights, snoozed, performed elaborate courtship rituals^[3] and looked after their young. The creatures were much more diverse — and downright bizarre^[4] — than what we might recall from childhood books.
Were it not for an asteroid strike 66 million years ago, the ancient creatures still might have dominated our world. And they still are here, in the form of birds we see around us today.
Scientists have discovered more in the past two decades than they had in the prior 200 years about how dinosaurs behaved and evolved. Here’s what’s new and different about what is known of dinosaurs.
How many dinosaurs were there?
The short answer: Lots.
Take T. Rex, the predator with banana-sized teeth^[5] that is perhaps the best studied dinosaur. Scientists believe that each T. rex generation was 20,000 individuals, and this adds up to a total of 2.5 billion during the 2.4 million years they are thought to have lived.
While it’s only an estimate and relies on lots of assumptions, it’s a good reminder that^[6] the fossil record only captures a tiny fraction of^[7] ancient life. The same team of researchers purports^[8] that for every 80 million adult T. rexs, there is only one clearly identifiable specimen in a museum.
Scientists have definitively identified around 900 dinosaur species — although there are plenty more potential species for which paleontologists^[9] don’t quite have enough bones or the fossils aren’t well preserved enough to truly designate them as such^[10]. And there are about 50 new dinosaurs discovered each year, inspiring many scientists to think we’re experiencing a golden age of paleontology^[11].
Many, many more species existed — one estimate suggests that there were between 50,000 and 500,000, but we might never find their fossil remains.
So many species could exist because they were highly specialized, meaning different types of dinosaurs had different sources of food and could live in the same habitats without competing. For example, with unusually large eyes and hair-trigger^[12] hearing, Shuuvia deserti, a tiny desert-dwelling dinosaur evolved to hunt at night, while Mononykus had perplexingly stunted^[13] forelimbs, each of which had only one functional finger and claw — perhaps to eat ants or termites.
It’s worth pointing out, of course, that many of the dinosaurs you might be familiar with did not live together as one community. Stegosaurus and T. rex^[14] never co-existed, separated by 80 million years of evolution. In fact, the time separating Stegosaurus and Tyrannosaurus is greater than the time separating T. rex and you.
What did they look like?
The first dinosaur discoveries, the earliest more than 150 years ago, focused on the sensational: The big bones and skulls we know from museum atriums.
But dinosaurs came in all shapes and sizes. In fact, some of the most exciting finds in recent years have been tiny. In 2016, a tail belonging to a sparrow^[15]-sized creature could have danced in the palm of your hand was found preserved in three dimensions in a chunk of amber^[16].

New evidence has dramatically shifted the way researchers see and perceive dinosaurs. While some dinosaurs did have reptilian scaly skin^[17], many did not and were a lot more bird-like.
In 1996, a fossil unearthed from Liaoning province in China by a farmer digging a well shook up the world of paleontology. It preserved some brown, furry stuff along the head, back and tail of Sinosauropteryx^[18], as the fossilized creature became known. Paleontologists described them as primitive feathers — something that generated intense debate. But it’s now widely accepted that many dinosaurs had fur or feathers.
Since then, according to Xu Xing, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing who worked on some of the earliest feathered fossils, 50 feathered dinosaur species have been found, mostly — but by no means exclusively^[19] — in one of the three main dinosaurs lineages^[20]: therapods^[21].

注友新闻

注释

[1] munched on

注释:津津有味地咀嚼

[2] snapped their jaws at insects

注释:咬住昆虫

[3] performed elaborate courtship rituals

注释:进行复杂的求爱仪式

[4] downright bizarre

注释:很诡异

[5] predator with banana-sized teeth

注释:有香蕉大小牙齿的捕食者

[6] it’s a good reminder that

注释:这是一个很好的提醒

[7] a tiny fraction of

注释:一小部分

[8] purports

注释:声称

备注:美 [pəpɔːt]
英 [pəpɔːt]
vt. 声称；意图；意指；打算
n. 意义，主旨；意图

[9] paleontologists

注释:古生物学家

备注:美 [ˌpæliɒnˈtɒlədʒɪst; ˌpeɪliɒnˈtɒlədʒɪst]
英 [ˌpæliɒnˈtɒlədʒɪst; ˌpeɪliɒnˈtɒlədʒɪst]

[10] designate them as such

注释:这样称呼他们

[11] a golden age of paleontology

注释:古生物学的黄金时代

[12] hair-trigger

注释:一触即发的

备注:adj. 一触即发的
n. 微扣扳机

[13] stunted

注释:发育不良的

备注:美 [ˈstʌntɪd]
英 [ˈstʌntɪd]
adj. 发育不足的，生长不良的；未能充分发展的
v. 阻碍……发展（stunt 的过去式及过去分词）

[14] Stegosaurus and T. rex

注释:剑龙和雷克斯霸王龙

[15] sparrow

注释:麻雀

备注:美 [ˈspærəʊ]
英 [ˈspærəʊ]
n. 麻雀；矮小的人

[16] a chunk of amber

注释:一块琥珀

[17] reptilian scaly skin

注释:爬虫类的有鳞的皮肤

[18] Sinosauropteryx

注释:中华龙鸟

[19] by no means exclusively

注释:决不是排外的

[20] three main dinosaurs lineages

注释:三种主要的恐龙谱系

[21] therapods

注释:兽脚亚目

What weve been getting wrong about dinosaurs(2)

Therapods are two-legged dinosaurs that include familiar predators like Velociraptors and T. Rex^[1], which quite likely had some kind of feathers. While many feathered dinosaurs were small, some, like Yutyrannus, were big: The 30-foot-long dinosaur was covered with wispy^[2] feathers^[3]. (We don’t know for certain whether all therapods were feathered.)
“Different feathers tell us different things about dinosaurs. Many dinosaurs use feathers for insulation; some dinosaurs use feathers for display; some use feathers for flight,” Xu said.
The first feathered fossil Xu studied was Beipiaosaurus^[4], which was discovered in 1997 and was for a while the largest known feathered dinosaur. He said when he first saw it, he knew immediately it would be the biggest discovery of his career.
Thanks to these discoveries, scientists now believe that the birds that flap around in our backyards^[5] directly evolved from small, theropod dinosaurs.
They likely acquired bird-like characteristics piece by piece, shrinking, losing their sharp teeth and evolving beaks and the ability to fly over time. Their smaller size and ability to fly may have helped them survive the city-sized asteroid that struck off the coast of Mexico 66 million years ago and doomed most dinosaurs to extinction^[6].

Outfit change?
The feathers aren’t just an outfit change that popular culture representations of dinosaurs just haven’t come to grips with^[7]. They can reveal intriguing details about dinosaur coloring — something once thought impossible to know — and the habitats in which they lived.
In some fossils, tiny structures called melanosomes^[8] that once contained pigment are preserved. By comparing the melansomes with those of living birds, scientists can tell the possible original colors of the feathers. In the case of Sinosauropteryx, dark areas of the fossil were a rusty brown or ginger color^[9], and the rest were thought to be white.
“If you have a black feather, the melanosomes are shaped like little sausages. Then, if you have ginger, or reddish brown hair, that obviously has a slightly different chemical composition. They are shaped like meatballs^[10],” said Jakob Vinther, a senior lecturer in paleobiology and evolutionary biology at the University of Bristol in the UK.
“And whether you take a the chest of a European robin or the hair of a ginger person, (the melansomes) are shaped like meatballs,” he added.
In 2017, Vinther and his colleagues also found evidence of camouflage^[11] in Sinosauropteryx: a dark back and light underside^[12,13], a striped tail and a “bandit^[14] mask” stripe^[15] running across its eyes. They believe it lived in an open habitat like a savannah because living animals in these environments sport sharp contrasts^[16] in their body markings^[17].
Similar research on other dinosaurs has revealed they were surprisingly brightly colored: Microraptor, a bizarre dinosaur with four wings, for instance, had a glossy, iridescent sheen^[18] in its feathers, while Psittacosaurus had a dark back and lighter underbelly^[19], but the muted and gradual contrast between the different colors suggested it lived in a closed habitat like a forest^[20].
So why is there so much resistance to the idea of feathered, fluffy dinosaurs? Vinther blames the legacy of the “Jurassic Park” movie franchise and its depiction of fierce, reptilian killers.
“‘Jurassic Park’ was such an immense milestone. The story (is) so captivating and enthralling^[21]. You cannot mess with ‘Jurassic Park.’^[22]”

注友新闻

注释

[1] Velociraptors and T. Rex

注释:迅猛龙和雷克斯霸王龙

[2] wispy

注释:纤细的

备注:美 [ˈwɪspi]
英 [ˈwɪspi]
adj. 象小束状的，纤细的；脆弱的

[3] wispy feathers

注释:纤细的羽毛

[4] Beipiaosaurus

注释:比皮奥龙

[5] flap around in our backyards

注释:在我们的后院飞来飞去

[6] doomed most dinosaurs to extinction

注释:使大多数恐龙灭绝

[7] come to grips with

注释:认真对待

备注:与…争论；与…冲突；认真对待；设法对付；开始搏斗

[8] melanosomes

注释:黑素体

[9] a rusty brown or ginger color

注释:铁锈褐色或姜黄色

[10] meatballs

注释:肉丸

备注:n. 肉丸；笨蛋（meatball的复数）

[11] camouflage

注释:伪装

备注:美 [ˈkæməflɑːʒ]
英 [ˈkæməflɑːʒ]
n. 伪装，掩饰
vt. 伪装，掩饰
vi. 伪装起来

[12] underside

注释:下面

备注:美 [ˈʌndəsaɪd]
英 [ˈʌndəsaɪd]
n. 下面；阴暗面

[13] a dark back and light underside

注释:黑色的背部和浅色的下面

[14] bandit

注释:强盗

备注:美 [ˈbændɪt]
英 [ˈbændɪt]
n. 强盗，土匪；恶棍；敲诈者

[15] a “bandit mask” stripe

注释:“强盗面具”条纹

[16] sport sharp contrasts

注释:显示鲜明的对比

[17] body markings

注释:身上的斑纹

[18] a glossy, iridescent sheen

注释:一种有夺目的、彩虹般的光泽

[19] underbelly

注释:下腹部

备注:美 [ˈʌndəbeli]
英 [ˈʌndəbeli]
n. 下腹部；薄弱部分；易受攻击的部位、区域等

[20] a closed habitat like a forest

注释:像森林一样封闭的栖息地

[21] captivating and enthralling

注释:迷人的,引入入胜的

[22] You cannot mess with ‘Jurassic Park.’

注释:你不能招惹《侏罗纪公园》。