侏羅紀(jì)搏擊俱樂部 第151期:恐龍同時(shí)離奇死亡
科學(xué)家們很快發(fā)現(xiàn)了這些恐龍全部是同時(shí)死亡的。
Finding the remains in one place could mean only one thing.
在同一地點(diǎn)發(fā)現(xiàn)的遺骸只能說明一個(gè)問題。
The entire herd had been wiped out suddenly, and catastrophically.
整個(gè)恐龍群突然地、災(zāi)難性地被毀掉。
Ceratopsian bone beds almost certainly all represent catastrophes.
腫鼻角龍骨床幾乎可以肯定代表著大災(zāi)難。
And these catastrophes only happen when the animals are moving together in herds.
這些災(zāi)難只可能在動(dòng)物成群遷移時(shí)發(fā)生。
And in the fossil record, we see that with the Ceratopsian dinosaurs, that, every now and then, things did go wrong.
在化石證據(jù)里，我們能夠看到角龍，不時(shí)地就會(huì)出現(xiàn)問題。
So maybe one in a hundred of the bone beds that we find turns out to be one of these mass death sites where we have horned dinosaurs that were travelling in herds that died all at once.
我們發(fā)現(xiàn)的骨床里面有百分之一會(huì)是這些帶角恐龍大規(guī)模死亡之處，在這里角龍成群旅行突然死亡。
With the Arctic vanishing, the seasons began to change on planet earth.
隨著北極在消失，地球上的季節(jié)開始變化。
This triggered deadly flash floods.
這導(dǎo)致了大型致命的洪水。
This is what we get if you have a lot of big animals in fast flowing water.
這就是當(dāng)有很多大型動(dòng)物在急流中時(shí)會(huì)出現(xiàn)的情況。
A single Pachyrhinosaurus could probably easily swim through even a relatively fast moving stream.
單獨(dú)一頭腫鼻角龍能夠輕易游過水流相當(dāng)湍急的河流。
But when you get two, or four, or a dozen, or a hundred going through the water they interfere with each other, their limbs trip each other up and they get entangled and they drown.
不過變成兩頭、四頭或是一打乃至一百頭同時(shí)過河的時(shí)候，它們會(huì)相互影響，它們的四肢絆倒對(duì)方，它們會(huì)糾纏在一起被淹死。
The force of the stream carries these bodies together and washes them up against the shoreline or at the curve of a stream.
水流會(huì)攜帶著這些尸體把它們沖上岸邊或是在水流轉(zhuǎn)彎處。
We see that today when a herd of antelope try to cross a stream at flood stage together, they get stacked up against each other.
現(xiàn)在我們能夠看到一群羚羊一起穿過洪流的情形，它們相互疊在一起。
And that seems to be what happened at Pipestone Creek back in the age of dinosaurs.
這似乎就是恐龍時(shí)期在派泊斯通溪的發(fā)生的事情。
The small grains of earth surrounding the bones supported the flood theory.
在骨頭周圍的泥土小顆粒支持洪水理論。
Different sized grains of dirt travel at different speeds.
不同尺寸的泥土顆粒在水流中的速度不同。
Fast moving water means little grains travel very quickly, bigger grains lag behind.
快速流動(dòng)的水意味著小顆粒移動(dòng)得非?？?，大顆粒被甩在后面。
So when they found these dinosaurs they were completely encased in the same sized grain, and that tells us that these animals were washed into their position.
當(dāng)他們找到這些恐龍時(shí)，它們是完全一樣大小的顆粒，那告訴我們這些動(dòng)物是被沖到它們的位置的。
But the flash flood raised new questions.
不過洪水帶來了新的問題。
A few deaths would have been understandable, but an entire herd of Pachyrhinosaurus charging into a flood and certain death?
幾頭恐龍的死亡可以理解不過為什么整群的腫鼻角龍沖進(jìn)奪命洪水之中呢?
Lawrence Witmer of Ohio University conducted CAT scans on the brain case of Pachyrhinosaurus looking for clues as to how the dinosaur may have behaved.
俄亥俄大學(xué)的勞倫斯·維特莫對(duì)腫鼻角龍的顱腔進(jìn)行了CAT掃描，尋找線索來了解這種恐龍可能的行為方式。
He found that this animal operated on raw instinct.
他發(fā)現(xiàn)這種恐龍完全靠本能反應(yīng)。
