英語聽力文摘 真的有大腳怪嗎？

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The Real Bigfoot

真的有大腳怪嗎?

Everybody has heard of Bigfoot, the gigantic ape-like creature that supposedly haunts the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Plenty of enthusiasts believe Bigfoot is real, though there isn’t any evidence that would be convincing to a primatologist– a scientist who studies primates, such as apes and humans.

However, there once was a creature that actually resembled what Bigfoot is supposed to look like. That creature was the Asian Gigantopithecus, or “Giant Ape.” And giant it was. Based on the very fragmentary fossil evidence we have, Gigantopithecus stood ten feet tall and weighed over half a ton. A creature like that would tower over any Bigfoot.

Giganto, as it is called for short, seems to have been a bamboo eater, something like modern day panda bears. It first appears in the fossil records we have about six-point-three million years ago and probably only disappeared for good around two hundred thousand years ago.

Why it went extinct no one knows for sure, but a reasonable guess is: us. Humans moved into Giganto’s territory some eight hundred thousand years ago, and within half a million years or so it was gone. Did our early ancestors hunt it to extinction? Did they deplete the bamboo resources themselves? We don’t know. But the evidence makes it look like the real Bigfoot had more to fear from us than we do from him.

大家聽說過大腳怪吧，它是在一種常出沒于太平洋西北部森林似猿的巨型怪獸。許多熱心人士都認為大腳怪是真實存在的，盡管目前并沒有任何證據(jù)使靈長類動物學家相信。靈長類動物學家是研究靈長類動物的，例如猿和人類。

然而，實際上曾經(jīng)有一種生物跟大腳怪長得很像。這種生物就是亞洲巨猿，也叫巨人猿。它的確很大?；谖覀儞碛蟹浅Ａ闼榈幕涗洠拊成砀呤⒊?，體重超過半噸。像這樣的生物遠遠高過大腳怪。

巨猿簡稱希甘托，這個名字聽上去好像是吃竹子的，就像現(xiàn)代的熊貓。它第一次出現(xiàn)在化石紀錄中是630萬年前，并且消失的時間大概在20萬年前。

巨猿為什么會滅絕，沒有人確切地知道。但是有一種合理的猜測：我們?nèi)祟悺Ｈ祟惔蠹s在80萬年前遷入巨猿的居住地，大約在100萬年內(nèi)它們就消失了。是我們早期的祖先狩獵導致巨猿滅絕的嗎?是巨猿耗盡竹資源的嗎?我們無從知曉。但種種跡象表明大腳怪更懼怕我們?nèi)祟?，而不是人類懼怕大腳怪。

注：大腳怪，又叫“沙斯夸支”，是在美國和加拿大發(fā)現(xiàn)但未證實的一種似猿的巨型怪獸。在北美的印第安人中，早就流傳著這種神秘怪獸的傳說。但確鑿的足跡最早是在1811年發(fā)現(xiàn)的。當時探險家大衛(wèi)·湯普遜從加拿大

的杰斯普鎮(zhèn)橫洛磯山脈前往美國的哥倫比亞河河口，途中看到一串人形的巨大腳印，每個長30厘米，寬18厘米。由于湯普遜沒有見到這種動物，只看到大得吃人的腳印。他報道了這一消息后，人們就用“大腳怪”來稱呼

這種怪獸。從此以后，關于發(fā)現(xiàn)大腳怪或其腳印的消息絡繹不絕，至少有750人自稱他們見到了大腳怪，還有更多的人見到了巨大的腳印。雖然不少科學家認為大腳怪是虛妄之談，但有些報道不能不引起人們的注意