象鸟: 重量堪比汽车的鸟界巨人(上)

For people who’ve never heard of an elephant bird, what do they need to know?

对于那些从未听说过象鸟的人来说，他们需要了解什么呢?

I think, first off, the size. They are colossal.

我想，首先是大小。它们体型庞大。

I’m Flora Lichtman, with Scientific American’s Science, Quickly, and this is Episode Two of my homage to Earth’s real big birds.

我是《科学美国人》“科学快播”栏目的弗洛拉·里奇曼，这是我向地球大型鸟类致敬的第二集。

Last episode, we talked about the biggest bird to fly.

上一集，我们讨论了最大的飞鸟。

Today we’re homing in on the heaviest bird to set its scaly foot down on planet Earth: the elephant bird.

今天我们要关注的是将其布满鳞片的爪子踩在地球上的最重的鸟:象鸟。

They are outstanding.

它们很显眼。

This is elephant bird expert and paleontologist James Hansford …

这是象鸟专家詹姆斯·汉斯福德，他也是古生物学家……

Just absolute titans of the bird world.

绝对是鸟类世界的巨人。

Elephant birds lived in Madagascar. They seem to have been mostly herbivorous. None of them flew.

象鸟生活在马达加斯加。它们似乎主要以食草为生。它们都不会飞。

There were a number of different species that ranged from the size of an ostrich to the size of a smart car.

象鸟有许多不同的种类，体型从鸵鸟大小到智能汽车大小不等。

The biggest I measured for any of the elephant birds was somewhere around 1,900 pounds.

我测量到的最大的象鸟大约重1900磅。

My god, I’m having a hard time really even picturing that.

我的天啊，我都很难想象。

Yeah. How do you even picture it? Well, when I measured the femur around, it was 30 centimeters, over a foot in circumference. So that is ginormous.

是的。你怎么会想象得到呢? 嗯，当我测量其股骨时，它的周长为30厘米，超过一英尺。巨大无比。

Oh my god. The circumference of the femur is over a foot.

我的天啊。股骨周长超过一英尺。

Yeah.

是的。

Shut the cluck up.

不要大惊小怪啦。

These behemoths appeared 30 million years ago, and they stuck around a long time.

这些庞然大物出现在3000万年前，并且存在了很长时间。

They were alive up until 1,000 years ago, but we know so much less about them than, say, Tyrannosaurus rex.

直到1000年前，它们都一直活着，但我们对它们的了解远不如霸王龙多。

There are all these questions because there are very large gaps in the fossil record.

有这么多疑问，是因为化石记录中存在很大的空白。

That’s paleogeneticist Alicia Grealy.

这是古遗传学家艾丽西亚·格雷利所言。

She worked with James and other colleagues to answer some basic questions about elephant birds, such as: Who are they related to? How did they evolve? Who made up the group?

她与詹姆斯和其他同事一起回答了一些关于象鸟的基本问题，比如: 它们和谁有亲缘关系? 它们是如何进化的? 谁组成了这个鸟群?

There’s just been a lot of debate throughout history about how many species there were.

历史上有很多关于象鸟有多少种类的争论。

Scientists have debated the elephant birds family tree since their discovery in the 1800s.

自从19世纪发现象鸟族谱以来，科学家们就一直在争论。

Of particular interest are the most elephantine members of the elephant bird herd ...

尤为吸引关注的是，象鸟群中最庞大的成员……

Like the one with the giant leg bones that James mentioned.

就像詹姆斯提到的那个有着巨大腿骨的象鸟。

For a long time, the biggest specimens had been classified as jumbo members of a species known as Aepyornis maximus.

在很长一段时间里，这个最大的象鸟标本被归为一种叫做马氏象鸟的巨型成员。

But they are hundreds of pounds heavier than the other Aepyornis maximus specimens—and their bones look kinda different, too.

但是它们比其他的马氏象鸟标本重数百磅——而且它们的骨头看起来也有点不同。

And a few years ago there was a suggestion that these largest bones were so big that they must have belonged to a different species.

几年前，有人提出，这些最大的骨头太大了，它们一定属于其他不同的物种。