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Paleontology.
古生物学。
I know what you're all thinking.
我知道你们在想什么。
"Jurassic Park."
“侏罗纪公园。
Maybe Ross from "Friends."
或者《老友记》里的罗斯。
Perhaps even Indiana Jones?
又甚至是印第安纳·琼斯？
But that's archaeology.
但这些都是考古学。
Let me show you some real paleontology.
让我向你展示真正的古生物学。
Now, first of all, let's take a step back in time.
现在，首先，让我们回到过去。
Not quite to the Jurassic, at least not yet, but to January 21, 2021, when I received an email about a curious discovery made in Rutland in the Midlands.
不至于回到侏罗纪，不用那么久远，我想回到的，是2021年1月21日，那天我收到了一封电子邮件，内容是关于在中部地区拉特兰的一项奇怪发现。
As a paleontologist, you can probably imagine, I get countless messages and emails from people saying, "Oh, we've made a cool fossil discovery."
作为一名古生物学家，你应该能想象到，我收到过无数人的短信和电子邮件，他们说：“哦，我们发现了一块超酷的化石。”
Being completely honest, most of the time, it turns out to be, well, a weird shaped rock, but, little did I know this email would change my life.
老实说，大多数情况下，那其实就是一块形状怪异的石头，但让我没想到的是，这封邮件改变了我的生活。
The find had been made Rutland Water Nature Reserve by Joe Davis, who works for the Leicestershire and Rutland Wildlife Trust who run the reserve in partnership with Anglian Water, who own the land.
乔·戴维斯在莱斯特郡和拉特兰野生动物信托组织工作，和拥有拉特兰水域自然保护区的安格利安·沃特共同管理着这片区域，这就是乔·戴维斯发现化石的地方。
Whilst doing some routine maintenance in one of the Reserve's lagoons, he'd lowered the water levels and Joe had spotted by chance this structure.
乔在保护区的一个泻湖做例行维护时降低了水位，并且偶然发现了这样一个结构。
Unsure of what to make of it, he thought, "Could this be a bit of old pipe, maybe?
他不知道这是什么，心想：“可能是什么水管？
Or perhaps, is this a dinosaur skeleton?”
或者可能是恐龙骨架吗？
he joked.
他边想边觉得好笑。
Luckily, Joe thought to himself, "Well, it this... could it be an important discovery?"
幸运的是，乔暗自思忖：“那么，这个东西……会是什么重要发现吗？
So crucially, he sought expert advice.
最重要的是，他寻求了专家的建议。
When these photos pinged into my inbox, I immediately recognized them as large vertebrae from the spine of an ichthyosaur, or as it's colloquially known as a sea dragon.
当这些照片出现在我的收件箱里时，我立刻认出它们是鱼龙脊椎上的一大块椎骨，而鱼龙，也就是大家俗称的“海龙”。
Now, I do need to clear that name up just a little bit, because, I'm sorry to say, they're not dragons.
现在，我要先就这个名字做一个澄清，因为，很遗憾地说，鱼龙不是龙。
Sorry.
抱歉。
They're also not swimming dinosaurs.
它们也不是会游泳的恐龙。
They're not the Loch Ness Monster on tour either.
也不是正在巡演的尼斯湖水怪。
And they're most definitely not, as the BBC dubbed them "Sea dragon dinosaur dolphin fossils."
也肯定不是BBC说的“海龙恐龙海豚化石”。
Terrible.
糟糕的名字。
Ichthyosaurs are in fact an awesome group of ancient marine reptiles that lived in the prehistoric seas as dinosaurs reigned supreme on the land.
鱼龙实际上是古代一种神奇的海洋爬行动物，恐龙统治着大陆的时候，它们生活在史前海域。
Like modern-day whales and dolphins, they gave birth to live young, and they breathed air.
就像现代的鲸鱼和海豚一样，它们孕育新生命，呼吸着空气。
Unfortunately, ichthyosaurs went extinct around 90 million years ago.
不幸的是，鱼龙在大约9000万年前灭绝了。
Our Rutland ichthyosaur lived during the early Jurassic, around about 180 million years ago.
我们的拉特兰鱼龙生活在侏罗纪早期，大约1.8亿年前。
This is a time when Rutland was deep underwater, covered by an ancient tropical sea.
这时，拉特兰地区还潜藏在深海之中，被古老的热带海洋所覆盖。
Now I spent most of my professional career of around 14 years studying thousands of ichthyosaurs.
我在职业生涯大部分的时间，也就是大概14 年的时间里，研究了数以千计的鱼龙。
And this has been a great pleasure to travel around the world, study lots and lots of ichthyosaurs.
环游世界，研究大量鱼龙，是一种莫大的乐趣。
And so when I received these photos, I immediately knew that this could be something very special indeed.
因此，当我收到这些照片时，我马上意识到这些东西很特别。
But of course, just looking at photos, it's hard to know exactly whether this is going to be something unique or is it just a few vertebrae?
但当然，只看照片，很难确定这究竟是很独特的东西，还是说只是几块椎骨。
