评论
打印
Darren, I do love these museum collections when you come behind the scenes and you suddenly feel that you are surrounded by treasures. And it's amazing to think that there are new discoveries to be made in here as well.
达伦，我真的很喜爱这些博物馆收藏，当你来到幕后时，突然感觉自己被财宝包围着。一想到在这里将会有新的发现，也会让人觉得不可思议。
That's right in a way. There are almost too many specimens for the number of experts out there. There is always new stuff to find in collections. You aren't necessary to go out to a field and look for dinosaurs. You can just rummage through museum floors. You will find something new.
在某种程度上，这是对的。对于众多在外探索的专家而言，标本的数量相对有限。在收集的标本上总会有新发现。你没有必要去野外的遗址寻找恐龙。只要在博物馆的地板上仔细翻阅，就会有新的发现。
Recently Darren and a colleague did exactly that. They came across a bone which had been lying on a museum shelf since Victorian times. It may look unremarkable but with several unique features, it didn't fit with anything which had been found before. And it was enough for them to describe a new species.
最近达伦和一位同事的确这样做了。他们碰到一块骨化石，它自维多利亚时代起就一直躺在博物馆的架子上。它看起来不显眼，但却有几处独一无二的特征，这与之前发现的任何恐龙并不契合。而且这足以让他们来描述一个新物种。
About 50 new species of dinosaurs named every year. About 90% of all named dinosaurs have been named since about 1990. If you were to generate a discovery curve of dinosaurs overtime, you would have a curve that shaped like this. And we are currently on the steep upward curve of the graph.
每年大概会给50个新物种命名。自上世纪90年代年起，几乎90%的恐龙均被命名。如果你发现的新恐龙来自于更早的时代，那么形状应该是这样的。目前我们的图表是陡峭的上升的曲线。
Why do you think there is such a craze for naming new dinosaurs at the moment?
你认为在那时为什么会出现给恐龙命名的热潮？
Regions of the world have been explored more. They haven't been really looked at much beforehand. So places like southern South America, much of the central Asia, parts of Africa and Australia, more and more people are going out to those places, finding new dinosaurs and bringing them back.
在世界范围内已经进行探索了许多。他们预先并没有太多依据可以参照。因此在南美南部地区，大多数中亚地区，部分非洲及澳洲地区，越来越多的人来到这些地方，寻找新的恐龙并带回去。
原文译文属可可原创，未经允许请勿转载！
