VOA慢速：恐龙也有“夜猫子”
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Small dinosaurs once lived in the desert in today's Mongolia and northern China.
小型恐龙曾经生活在如今的蒙古和中国北部的沙漠中。
Their great night vision and strong hearing made them deadly predators during the nighttime.
它们出色的夜视能力和非凡的听力使它们成为夜间的致命捕食者。
Scientists said Thursday they have found a circle of bones around the eye of a dinosaur called Shuvuuia Deserti.
科学家周四表示，他们在一种叫做鸟面龙的恐龙的眼部周围发现了一圈骨头。
The bones were inside the skull, which holds the hearing organ.
这些骨头位于容纳听力器官的颅骨内部。
Scientists say the dinosaur had hearing and sight abilities much like an owl,
科学家表示，这种恐龙的听力和视力都很像猫头鹰，
meaning it could hunt in the dark.
这意味着它能在黑暗中捕食。
Their study was published in the journal, Science.
他们的研究发表在《科学》期刊上。
The research showed that most predatory dinosaurs had good hearing,
研究表明，大多数掠食性恐龙都有良好的听力，
but their sight worked best during the daytime.
但白天是它们视力效果最佳的时候。
The Shuvuuia, however, loved nightlife.
然而，鸟面龙喜欢夜生活。
The two-legged dinosaur was the size of a large bird and weighed about as much as a house cat.
鸟面龙这种兽脚亚目恐龙有一只大型鸟类那么大，体重约相当于一只家猫。
It had many small teeth, like pieces of rice.
它有许多小牙齿，像米粒一样。
It was lightweight and lived during the Cretaceous Period, about 75 million to 81 million years ago.
它的重量很轻，生活在大约7500万到8100万年前的白垩纪时期。
Roger Benson is a paleontologist from the University of Oxford who helped write the study.
罗杰·本森是牛津大学的古生物学家，他帮助撰写了这项研究。
"It's such a strange animal that paleontologists have long wondered what it was actually doing," he said.
他说：“鸟面龙是一种非常奇怪的动物，古生物学家们长期以来一直想知道它当时到底在做什么。”
Its mid-length neck, small head, and very long legs, made it look like an unusual chicken.
它的脖子中等长度，头小而且腿非常长，那使它看起来像一只不寻常的鸡。
But unlike birds, it had short, strong arms with a large claw on the end, which was useful for digging.
但与鸟类不同的是，它的前臂短而有力，末端有一个大爪子，那可以用来挖掘。
Jonah Choiniere is a paleontologist at Wits University in South Africa and the study's lead author.
乔纳·乔尼埃是南非金山大学的古生物学家，也是这项研究的主要作者。
"Shuvuuia might have run across the desert floor under cover of night,
“鸟面龙可能在黑夜的掩护下穿过沙漠的地面，
using its incredible hearing and night vision to track small prey such as nocturnal mammals, lizards and insects," he said.
利用其极佳的听觉和夜视能力追踪在夜间活动的哺乳动物、蜥蜴和昆虫等小型猎物。”他说。
The researchers also looked at a structure called the lagena.
研究人员还观察了一种叫做听壶的结构。
The lagena is a curved sack that sits in an area of bones around the brain.
听壶是一个弯曲的囊状物，位于大脑周围的骨骼区。
It is connected to the part of the ear that lets reptiles and birds keep balance and move their heads while walking.
它连接着耳朵的一部分，让爬行动物和鸟类在行走时能保持平衡以及扭动脑袋。
The longer the lagena, the better hearing an animal has.
听壶越长，动物的听力就越好。
The barn owl can hunt even in total darkness and has the longest lagena of any living bird, relative to its size.
仓鸮即使在完全黑暗的环境中也能捕食，就其体型而言，仓鸮的听壶是所有现存鸟类中最长的。
Shuvuuia also has a very long lagena, almost the same in relative size to a barn owl's.
鸟面龙的听壶也很长，其相对大小几乎和仓鸮的一样。
The researchers also found that Shuvuuia had a very wide scleral ring -- tiny bones that circle the eyeball.
研究人员还发现鸟面龙有非常宽的巩膜环——环绕眼球的微小骨骼。
The ring's large size means that it was able to see in darkness.
巩膜环宽大意味着它能在黑暗中视物。
Choiniere said that he previously thought that during the age of dinosaurs,
乔尼埃说，他之前认为，在恐龙时代，
the night was used by mammals to come out of hiding and still avoid predators.
夜晚是哺乳动物走出藏身之处却仍能躲避捕食者的好时候。
"The importance of these findings is that
“这些发现的重要性在于，
it forces us to imagine dinosaurs like Shuvuuia evolving to take advantage of these nocturnal communities," he said.
它促使我们猜测像鸟面龙这样的恐龙在进化过程中利用了这些在夜间活动的动物群落。”他说。
I'm Jill Robbins.
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