【连线20120229】中国发现1.2亿年的翼龙

徐大帅

【中文标题】中国发现1.2亿年前的翼龙
【原文标题】120-Million-Year-Old ‘Ghost Dragon’ Pterosaur Discovered in China
【登载媒体】连线杂志
【来源地址】http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/02/guidraco-flying-dinosaur/【译者】徐大帅
【翻译方式】人工
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【译文】

120-Million-Year-Old ‘Ghost Dragon’ Pterosaur Discovered in China  

中国发现1.2亿年前的翼龙      

• By Dave Mosher

Images: Xialin Wang et al./Naturwissenschaften/Springer

Paleontologists in northeast China have discovered a wildly snaggle-toothed skull that belonged to a previously unknown, 120-million-year-old flying reptile.

古生物学家们日前在中国东北地区发现了一枚杂乱的牙齿合拢的头骨，可以肯定的是这枚头骨属于一种前所未知的，距今大概有着1.2亿年历史的飞行生物。

Named Guidraco venator, which is Chinese and Latin for “ghost dragon hunter,” the meat-eating pterosaur had a wingspan of between 13 and 16 feet. The basket of pointy teeth at the end of its foot-long skull probably helped it catch fish, and a round sail on its head may have stabilized flight.

这个家伙被称为“Guidraco venator”，中文或者是拉丁语的意思是“鬼魂儿般的恐龙猎手，”这种肉食类翼龙的翼展在13到16英尺之间。它那有着锋利牙齿的大长脑袋的末处长得像个筐子，据猜测，这可能有利于它捕捉鱼类动物，而它头部的顶端位置则长着一副圆形的“帆”，这可能有利于它飞行的稳定。

“This is really an amazing fossil, but the funny thing to me is that it was found in Asia. It looks very similar but not identical to pterosaurs found in Brazil,” said Eberhard “Dino” Frey, a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History in Karlsruhe. Frey was not involved in the work, published online Feb. 22 in Naturwissenschaften.

“这绝对是一副惊人的化石，但是能在亚洲发现这种动物的化石却是一件有意思的事。它长得挺像我们曾经在巴西发现的一种翼龙，但是它们又不是一种翼龙。”2月22日在Naturwissenschaften发表网络评论时，卡尔斯鲁厄国家自然历史博物馆任职古生物学家Eberhard “Dino” Frey说。Frey并没有参与这项工作。

The closest relative to G. venator may be a fossil Frey and his colleagues recovered in 2003, called Ludodactylus sibbicki, adding further evidence that now 40 known species of pterosaurs were more globally distributed than previously thought. “The longer we search, the more of these animals turn up,” Frey said.

新发现的“Guidraco venator”的近亲可能是Frey与其同事在2003年复原的一副被称为“Ludodactylus sibbicki”的翼龙化石，这个新发现的家伙也像现在已知的种翼龙一样，证明了翼龙在全球的分布范围要比以前所想的要广的多。“我们找的时间越长，更多的这种动物也就被发现的更多，”Frey说道

Pterosaurs were highly successful reptiles (not dinosaurs, as they’re commonly mislabeled) that lived between 210 and 65 million years ago. Although insects took to air first, pterosaurs are recognized as the first flying vertebrates.

翼龙实际上是一种在2.1亿万年6500万年前繁衍状况很棒的爬行动物（而不是被一般所谓人的那样，它们不是恐龙）。虽然昆虫被认为是第一种能飞的生物，但是翼龙却是公认的第一种能飞行的脊椎动物。

Most of their fossils are found in formerly arid plains or river valleys, suggesting the animals primarily dwelled inland. All pterosaurs are thought to have eaten meat, and two crucial features suggest G. venator ate fish: Its 2-inch-long teeth appear suited to trapping fish from water, and pieces of fossilized poop found near its head are full of fish vertebrae.

它们的大部分的化石被发现在以前的干旱平原或河谷中，就像动物们一般都选择在内陆中生活一样，翼龙也不例外。所有的翼龙都被认为是肉食动物，并且现在有两个重要的证据可以证明“Guidraco venator”是吃鱼的：它有两英寸长适合在水里捕鱼的的牙齿，另外在这枚头部化石附近满是鱼椎骨化石。

Whether pterosaurs scavenged, hunted or pursued both strategies, however, is an ongoing debate for many species, including giant pterosaurs known as Quetzalcoatlus. The new G. venator is no exception.

但是翼龙目动物是食腐动物呢，还是单纯的捕猎呢，还是像狮子一样靠一点点智慧和策略捕食呢？学界仍然在为此而争论，包括像已知的巨型翼龙“Quetzalcoatlus”以及新发现的“Guidraco venator”都不是例外。

‘Just imagine yourself as this creature. How would you catch living fish with such needles?’

The new study’s authors –  paleontologist Alexander Kellner of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro and Xiaolin Wang, Ahunxing Jiang and Xin Cheng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences — could not be reached for comment, but wrote in the study that G. venator likely hunted actively for fish.

“试想一下，如果你是这种生物。你怎样才能用这种针一般的牙齿捉到活鱼呢？”新研究告的作者——里约热内卢联邦大学的古生物学家 Alexander Kellner和中国科学技术研究院的Janeiro and Xiaolin Wang，Ahunxing Jiang 和Xin Cheng——他们虽然碰不到化石，但是他们在研究中写到“Guidraco venator”很有可能捕食鱼类。

Frey politely disagreed. “Just imagine yourself as this creature. How would you catch living fish with such needles? You have no fingers, no fork, nothing to remove a fish if it gets stuck,” he said. “They might have randomly collected what was there and probed it with a spaghetti-like tongue. If edible, they’d eat it. If not, they’d bump it out.”

Frey礼貌的表示了自己的不同意见。“仅仅是想象自己就是那种生物。你怎样才能捕到鱼？你没有手指，没有叉子，没有任何可以驱使鱼们使它们受骗的招数，”他说“他们（Guidraco venator）可能只是随机收集那些东西并且用自己的细长如意大利面条似的舌头去试探它们，能吃他们就吃了，不能吃就扔了。”

Such behavior would mirror that of L. sibbicki, its closest relative. The only fossil L. sibbicki recovered in Brazil suggests the animal died by getting a plant leaf wedged in its mouth while filter-feeding. “It may have mistaken the leaf for a dead fish and accidentally it got stuck. It couldn’t remove it,” Frey said.

这种行为很像Guidraco venator的近亲L. Sibbicki。L. Sibbicki唯一个复原化石储藏在巴西，这个动物的嘴里楔形植物叶子。“很可能它是因为吃东西的时候被卡死的，”Frey说道。

Most pterosaur fossils have turned up in silty and fine-grained sediments in what is now Brazil, but the new find, from the Jiufotang Formation in northeast China, adds an interesting twist to the evolutionary histories of pterosaurs.

大多数翼龙化石是在巴西某些地方的淤泥质和细粒沉积物中被发现的，但是在中国东北的九福堂，翼龙的进化史出现了一个有意思的转折。

“Its similarities to some Brazilian pterosaurs show that these animals were probably distributed globally,” paleontologist David Martill of the University of Portsmouth, another pterosaur researcher who wasn’t involved in the study, wrote to Wired.

“就像那些巴西的翼龙一样，新化石表明这些动物全世界哪都有。”另一个没有参加此项调查研究的翼龙研究人员，英国朴茨茅斯大学的古生物学家David Martil在网上如是写到。

“We can [now] hope to find them anywhere in the world where early Cretaceous strata crop out. We have found some tantalising fragments in England, some dating back to discoveries made in the 19th century, that indicate similar animals.”

“我们现在希望可以把它们从世界上各处的早期白垩纪地层中挖出来。我们已经找到了一些可以追溯到19世纪的诱人的片段，那是很多类似的动物。”

Frey said it’s only a matter of time before more pterosaurs pop out of the rock. “I don’t think we are at the end of the findings,” he said. “We’re going to see more and more overlaps and discover only a few species were endemic to a region.”

Frey说，更多的翼龙化石被发现只是一个时间问题。“我不认为我们会有最后一个的发现结果，”他说。“我们将会看到越来越多的重叠部分，并且发现在一些地区仅有少数几个特殊的物种。”