挖掘过去42

Why do you think T Rex has captured everyone's imagination so? It's one of the largest dinosaurs, I think especially the teeth and blood and the guts, and something the children identify with. And that's the point, because it doesn't really matter what the experts say, to kids everywhere, me included, T Rex perfectly fulfils all our expectations of what a true monster should be. The fossil record not only challenges our view of the past, it's also giving us stark warnings for the future. Professor Adrian Lister is a world expert on woolly mammoths and he has a theory on what it was that wiped out Britain's ancient giants. I mean this, for example, is some real hair of a woolly mammoth from Siberia. Look at that. Piece of mammoth skin with its hair on. This is very unusual. Wow. But, you know, it shows very graphically the cold adaptation of the animal. We also know that it ate mostly grass. And this is another remarkable piece. This, believe it or not, is actually part of a mammoth's stomach. This is the stomach wall, and here is the compressed food of this animal's last meal. I think you'll find it smells rather like the elephant house at the zoo, and that's about 30,000 years old.

你觉得霸王龙为什么让大家这么感兴趣？ 它是最大的恐龙之一，血染的獠牙，凶悍的长相，种种特质吸引了孩子们。那才是重点，因为对于孩子们和我，专家的说法并不重要。重要的是，霸王龙完美地满足了我们对于真正怪兽的想象。 化石记录不仅颠覆我们对于过去的看法，还给我们带来关于未来的警告。艾德里安·李斯特教授是研究猛犸象的世界级专家。他提出了一种理论，阐释英国史前大型生物灭绝原因。 比如说呢这里是西伯利亚猛犸象的部分毛发。 看哪 一片连着毛发的猛犸象皮，这很罕见。不过，它生动地展示了这种动物有多么耐寒，我们还知道它以食草为主，这块化石也很棒。信不信由你，这是猛犸象胃的一部分。这是胃壁，这是它最后一餐的食物残渣。你应该能闻到现代动物园大象屋的味道，而这块东西有三万年历史了。