传说中的"大脚怪"是否存在?

Everybody has heard of Bigfoot, the gigantic ape-like creature that supposedly haunts the forests of the Pacific Northwest. Plenty of enthusiasts believe Bigfoot is real, though there isn’t any evidence that would be convincing to a primatologist– that's a scientist who studies primates, such as apes and humans.

想必大家对“大脚怪”都有耳闻吧。据专家推测，这种巨大的类猿生物在太平洋西北的森林里活动。尽管灵长类动物学家（研究诸如猿类和人类等灵长类动物的科学家）至今仍没有发现任何能证明大脚怪存在的有力证据，但很多对这种生物感兴趣的人相信它们是存在的。

However, there once was a creature that actually resembled what Bigfoot is supposed to look like. That creature was the Asian Gigantopithecus, or “Giant Ape.” And giant it was. based on the very fragmentary fossil evidence we have, Gigantopithecus stood ten feet tall and weighed over half a ton. A creature like that would tower over any Bigfoot.

然而，曾经确有一种生物与我们想象中的大脚怪很相像，那就是亚洲巨猿，或称作“巨人猿”。据仅存的一些化石残片，巨猿有10英尺高，体重可超过半吨，估计像巨猿这样的生物，体型要比任何大脚怪都大。

Giganto, as it is called for short, seems to have been a bamboo eater, something like modern day panda bears. It first appears in the fossil records we have about six-point-three million years ago and probably only disappeared for good around two hundred thousand years ago.

巨猿（简称Giganto）似乎以竹子为食，和现在的大熊猫类似。化石记录中显示，巨猿最早出现在6百30万年前，大约在20万年前灭绝。

Why it went extinct no one knows for sure, but a reasonable guess is: us. Humans moved into Giganto’s territory some eight hundred thousand years ago, and within half a million years or so it was gone. Did our early ancestors hunt it to extinction? Did they deplete the bamboo resources themselves? We don’t know. But the evidence makes it look like the real Bigfoot had more to fear from us than we do from him.

没人确切地知道，巨猿为何灭绝。一个合理的猜测是：我们人类使之然。在大约60万年前，人类进入了巨猿的领地，之后，大约在50万年之后，巨猿便灭绝了。是我们的祖先将巨猿猎杀绝迹的吗？还是他们把竹子消耗殆尽了？我们不得而知。但种种迹象表明，与人类惧怕它们相比，它们似乎更害怕人类。

Notes:

enthusiast:热衷者，爱好者

resemble:看起来像

Giganto:巨人

extinct:灭绝