巨齒鯊。海洋中出現(xiàn)過的最大的掠食性魚類。
Megalodon as a species, it receives a lot of interest.
巨齒鯊這個(gè)物種,引發(fā)了很多人的興趣。
It is the closest thing that shark people have to their own Tyrannosaurus, so to speak, and being a big spectacular animal.
這是喜歡鯊魚的人們可以跟霸王龍相提并論的最近的東西,同樣也是碩大壯觀的動(dòng)物。
And at first, scientists thought it was the top predator of the seas.
一開始,科學(xué)家們以為它是海洋中的頂級(jí)掠食者。
In 1992, they found out they were mistaken.
在1992年,他們發(fā)現(xiàn)自己錯(cuò)了。
Dr. Lawrence G. Barnes of the Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, made a remarkable discovery in Japan.
洛杉磯郡自然歷史博物館的勞倫斯.G.巴恩斯博士,在日本做出了重大發(fā)現(xiàn)。
But it wasn't on the ocean floor. It was in a storage box.
但是并不是在海床上。而是在儲(chǔ)物箱里。
What he would find revealed a second deep sea monster, one previously unknown to science.
他發(fā)現(xiàn)的東西揭示了第二種深海怪物,此前不為科學(xué)界所知的。
It shared the domain of Megalodon and we now know it was every bit as terrifying.
它瓜分了巨齒鯊的領(lǐng)地,我們現(xiàn)在知道它的同樣恐怖。
In the early 1990's, I was traveling with a grant through Japan and I happened to go to the little town called Shiga-mura, mura means village.
在上世紀(jì)九十年代初,我用一筆撥款在日本旅行,剛好來到了一個(gè)小鎮(zhèn)子叫四賀村。
They took me to their little town museum and they had, laying in storage, a fossilized sperm whale skeleton.
他們帶我去了鎮(zhèn)里的小博物館,在他們的儲(chǔ)存室里有一具抹香鯨骨骼化石。
I looked at it with my colleague and I said "that's a new species".
我和我的同事看著它,我說:“那是一個(gè)新物種”。
Barnes named this new creature Brygmophyseter shigensis, the biting sperm whale.
巴恩斯給這種新生物起名叫四賀噬抹香鯨,就是噬抹香鯨。
In the prehistoric deep seas, the biting sperm whales were among the largest, and deadliest whales of their time.
在史前的深海里,噬抹香鯨是它們那個(gè)時(shí)期最大也最致命的鯨之一。
They dwarfed today's killer whale.
它們比今天的虎鯨體型大得多。
Because we have a complete skeleton, we can estimate the body size of Brygmophyseter at probably 35 to 40 feet.
因?yàn)槲覀冇型暾墓羌?,我們能夠估?jì)出四賀鯨的體長在35到40英尺。
By comparison with modern whales, this is medium-size. Not really large.
與現(xiàn)代的鯨相比,這是中等體型。并不算很大。
However, at its time, this was among the largest of the whales that did exist then.
不過,在它的時(shí)期,這是那時(shí)存在的最大的鯨之一。
When paleontologists studied whale DNA, they found something remarkable.
當(dāng)古生物學(xué)家們研究鯨的DNA時(shí),他們有了不尋常的發(fā)現(xiàn)。