辽宁发现最大带羽毛恐龙

2012-04-10 00:00:00来源：可可英语

　　新闻背景：

　　辽宁发现体型最大带羽毛恐龙，不为能飞为保温。

　　科学家在辽西发现了一种新的暴龙类恐龙——华丽羽王龙，是迄今发现的体型最大的带羽毛恐龙。

　　这批化石标本发现于朝阳市北票上园镇四合屯村，至少包括3个相当完整的个体。

　　“华丽羽王龙”生存在大约距今一亿两千五百万年的白垩纪早期，成年时体长约9米，重达约1.4吨，比此前已知最大的带羽毛恐龙“意外北票龙”要大40倍。因此“华丽羽王龙”代表了已知体型最大的带羽毛的恐龙。

　　新闻正文：

　　Scientists have discovered a new species of dinosaur, the largest-ever feathered one, in Liaoning Province.

　　A statement released by the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences yesterday said that the new species is a close relative of the Tyrannosaurus rex.

　　Its name "Yutyrannus huali" is a combination of Latin and Chinese and means "beautifully feathered tyrant."

　　Fossils previously discovered in the province have indicated that some small dinosaurs had bird-like feathers, whereas three fossil specimens of the new tyrannosauroid from the same region show that at least one much larger dinosaur had a feathery coat as well.

　　Chinese and Canadian scientists also published the new discovery in this week"s issue of the journal Nature.

　　The Yutyrannus is believed to have lived during the Early Cretaceous period around 125 million years ago.

　　"The feathers of Yutyrannus were simple filaments," said Professor Xu Xing, research fellow at the institute and the lead author of the study. "They were more like the fuzzy down of a modern baby chick."

　　The researchers estimate that an adult Yutyrannus would have been about 9 meters long and weighed about 1,400 kilograms. This makes it considerably smaller than the Tyrannosaurus rex, but some 40 times heavier than the largest previously-known feathered dinosaur, the statement said.

　　The large size of Yutyrannus and the downy structure of its feathers would have made flight an impossibility, the statement said, but the feathers may have had another important function.

　　"Yutyrannus dramatically increases the size range of dinosaurs for which we have definite evidence of feathers," Xu said. "It's possible that feathers were much more widespread, at least among the meat-eating dinosaurs, than most scientists would have guessed."

相关词汇：

Dinosaur：恐龙

Feathered：长羽毛的

Vertebrate：脊椎动物

Paleontology：古生物学

Paleoanthropology：古人类学

Close relative：近亲

Tyrannosaurus：暴龙

Tyrant：暴君

Fossil：化石

Specimen：样本

Cretaceous：白垩纪的