新种类的恐龙被发现

New Dinosaur Found November 12, 2009--A new dinosaur unearthed in South Africa has given scientists a gimpse into the evolution of sauropods, the biggest animals ever to have walked the Earth, a new study says. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/news/history-archaeology-news/sa-new-dinosaur-apvin.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Transcript These fossils could prove to be a missing evolutionary link in our knowledge of dinosaurs. Aardonyx celestae was a small-headed herbivore with a huge barrel chest that roamed the Earth about 200 million years ago. The fossilized bones were unveiled in South Africa this week, to coincide with the publication of the scientists' findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "The first day of digging, we started exposing large bone after large bone. Bones far too large to belong to any Massospondylus and with many anatomical features that suggested that this was not just another pile of the Massospondylus bones we had something new and very, very exiting." The findings show that Aardonyx celestae walk on its hind legs but could drop to all 4. The specimen discovered stood nearly 6 feet high at the hip, but was believed to still be growing when it died. It's thought adults could have grown as high as 50 feet. Aardonyx celestae has many of characteristics of the plant-eating herbivores that walked on 2 legs as well as their descendants. "I guess this is the new jewel in the crown of the South Africa's heritage. And, um, it's a particularly significant because it's very intermediate type of dinosaur. It sits very squarely between 2 different basic types of dinosaur. An earlier bipedal type of dinosaur that we can usually called prosauropods, and a more advanced gigantic four-legged type of dinosaur that we called sauropods." The research was funded in part by a grant from National Geographic. The team believes they may have stumbled on to a "paleontological oasis" in central South Africa that may yield further previously unknown dinosaur species. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- herbivore []n.草食动物 coincide with []v.与...相符 Massospondylus [] n. 大椎龙 anatomical [] adj.解剖的, 解剖学的 bipedal [] n.两足动物adj.两足动物的 prosauropod [] n.蜥蜴类爬行动物 sauropod [] n. 蜥脚类动物：侏罗纪和白垩纪的蜥脚亚目大型半水生恐龙 paleontological [] adj. 古生物学的