恐龍不像你想的那樣無敵

○張軍輝

Thirty years ago Spielberg stunned the world with his Jurassic Park and led the audience into a world of dinosaurs.The movie showed how powerful a dinosaur could be.It is widely believed that dinosaurs have no enemies and when mammals meet a dinosaur,they would become its prey.But a new fossil study by researchers from China and Canada suggests that ancient mammals may have attacked and eaten larger dinosaurs.

The fossil was found by a Chinese farmer in 2012.After studying the fossil,the scientists think it was a badger-like mammal that was attacking a small,beaked dinosaur.When the attack happened,the lava flow from a nearby volcano buried the animals and formed the fossil.

In researchers' eyes,the place where the fossil was found is "China's Pompeii." Pompeii was a city in Italy that was caught in a volcanic eruption about 2，000 years ago.Ash covered the city.Researchers discovered the ruins of the city about 500 years ago.

Dinosaur researchers agree that small,scavenging mammals might eat dead dinosaurs.But they would never imagine a mammal attacked a living dinosaur before studying the fossil.

The mammal in the fossil was as big as a house cat and the dinosaur was about the size of an average dog.

Notes:

stun 使吃驚

mammal 哺乳動物

prey 獵物；食物

fossil 化石

badger 獾

beaked 尖嘴狀的

lava 巖漿；熔巖

eruption 爆發；噴發

scavenging 吃腐肉的

30 年前，斯皮爾伯格的《侏羅紀公園》震撼全球，帶領觀眾進入了恐龍的世界。這部電影展示了恐龍的強大。人們普遍認為恐龍沒有天敵，哺乳動物遇到恐龍時，只能成為它們的獵物。但中國和加拿大研究人員的一項新的化石研究表明，古代哺乳動物可能攻擊并吃掉體型比它們大的恐龍。

這塊化石是一個中國農民在2012 年發現的。在研究了化石后，科學家們認為這是一種類似獾的哺乳動物，正在攻擊一種小型尖嘴恐龍。兩只動物爭斗時，來自附近火山的巖漿吞噬了它們，并形成了化石。

研究人員認為這塊化石所在的地方就是“中國的龐貝”。龐貝古城位于意大利，大約2 000 年前毀于火山爆發。灰燼封住了整個城市。大約500 年前，研究人員發現了這個城市的廢墟。

恐龍研究人員認為小的食腐動物可能吃死的恐龍。但是此次研究之前從來沒有想過它們會攻擊活的恐龍。

化石中的哺乳動物有家貓那么大，被攻擊的恐龍和普通的狗身材差不多。

哺乳動物捕食小型恐龍藝術復原圖（網絡圖片，版權屬于原作者）