2015考研英语阅读谁吃了恐龙_大学英语阅读

2015考研英语阅读谁吃了恐龙

　　这颗牙不是很大，其尺寸表明牙齿的主人不超过一米五这样的掠食者本不能捕食一头成年鸟脚亚目食草恐龙。但无可争辩的是，这颗牙是第一个鳄鱼目动物拿恐龙当点心的证据。此外，这也有助于消除对庄姆海勒与博依德发现的其它看似鳄鱼咬痕的怀疑。结合对这个地区的分析，两位研究者认为他们所发现的是一个遭到鳄鱼目动物偷袭的恐龙筑巢地。

　　Such suspicions have been aroused before. Other sites in Utah are known to be dinosaurnesting grounds, since eggs are found there. Crocodilian bones frequently turn up at suchsites. Ms Drumheller and Mr Boyd, however, seem to have nailed the connection down. Juveniledinosaurs, at least, were indeed the prey of crocodilians. But what about adults?

　　这样的怀疑以前也出现过。由于发现了恐龙蛋，人们知道犹他州还有其它恐龙筑巢地。在这些地区，鳄鱼目动物化石经常被发现。可庄姆海勒与博依德像是要明确这一关系，年幼恐龙至少是鳄鱼目动物的猎物，那么成年的呢?

　　More than mere morsels

　　不仅仅是少数

　　To investigate that question, Martin Lockley at the University of Colorado, Denver, andSpencer Lucas of the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and Science, turned to one of themost famous fossil phenomena on the planetthe dinosaur freeway that runs throughColorado, New Mexico, Kansas and Oklahoma. This collection of tracks, scattered over severalsites of the same age along the coast of an inland sea, is thought to mark an ancientmigration route. The traces of more than 1,380 individual animals can be distinguished.Most, but not all, were ornithopods. Some were small carnivorous dinosaursthe sort thatmight pick off young stragglers in the way that the crocodilians identified by Ms Drumheller andMr Boyd did. But there is, Dr Lockley and Dr Lucas realised, something missing from thepicture. When they looked for traces of big predatory dinosaurs, they found none.