侏羅紀搏擊俱樂部 第148期:無底洞穴意味著死亡

The lion's senses are keen.Its whiskers can pick up vibrations.So it can sense animals as small as a mouse in pitch darkness.

擬獅的感官很敏銳。它的胡須能感知振動。所以它能在漆黑一片的情況下感知到和老鼠一樣小的動物。

The lion is desperate, and the only way it can win is to get to the throat.

擬獅孤注一擲，它的唯一勝機在于能咬到喉嚨。

With the last remaining strength he lunges towards the bear.

它用盡所剩的力氣撲向短面熊。

The force of the impact knocks the bear backwards and the lion grabs the throat.

巨大的撞擊力讓短面熊倒向后面，擬獅咬住了它的喉嚨。

The lion needs almost 20 kilos of meat a day to survive.Without it, it will quickly weaken.

擬獅每天需要吃下二十公斤肉才能生存。沒有足夠食物它會很快變?nèi)酢?/p>

The bear is able to regain his footing, and towers over its rival.

短面熊重新站立起來，壓倒它的對手。

It throws the 750 pound Mega Lion with little effort.

它不費多大力氣就將750磅重的擬獅甩開。

Unfortunately for the lion, the bear happens to throw it in direction of the cave.

這頭擬獅很不幸，短面熊剛好把它朝地穴的方向扔去。

The cave is over 30 meters deep, a deadly drop.

地穴深達三十多米，這是死亡墜落。

It's a sheer drop to the bottom that nothing can survive.

這一下直接掉到洞底，沒什么能夠生還。

The herbivore bones that were found in the cave show no signs of predation, so this tells us that nothing that went into that cave lived to eat the bodies of the other victims.

在洞里發(fā)現(xiàn)的植食動物骨頭沒有被食用的跡象，所以這說明沒什么能夠活著進入洞穴吃掉其它犧牲者的尸體。

Although the cave meant certain death to animals, it would yield ground breaking benefits to paleontologists.

盡管洞穴對動物來說意味著死亡，這卻給古生物學家們帶來了突破性的好處。

The great thing about a cave is that it helps preserve the evidence, because the bones aren't exposed to the normal elements that can erode the facts and alter the clues, but that's of little comfort to the animals who happened to fall into it.

洞穴的一個好處就是它能保存證據(jù)，因為骨頭沒有暴露在通常的環(huán)境下，不會被侵蝕而損失線索，不過這對掉進洞里的動物們并不算安慰。

Having claimed the life of the Mega Lion, natural trap cave would continue to accumulate thousands of other victims over the next 10,000 years.

在讓美洲擬獅殞命之后，這個自然陷阱穴在此后的一萬年里會繼續(xù)讓成千上萬的動物喪生。

The Mega Lion is not the only victim to fall prey to the trap.

擬獅并非陷阱的唯一犧牲品。

As the environments continued to get worse, even the apex predator, like the short-faced bear, would be forced to take advantage of any food source it could find.

隨著環(huán)境繼續(xù)惡化，就連短面熊這樣的頂級掠食者，也被迫利用它能找到的任何事物來源。

And like the lion, it would have been lured into the cave with the promise of meat, but would have found death waiting at the bottom of the cave.

和擬獅一樣，它會被找到肉的希望引誘進洞穴，但它會墜落洞底而喪生。

Giant predators like the Mega Lion and short-faced bear would eventually be unable to sustain themselves in the warmer climates, but they remain some of the largest and most ferocious mammals ever to walk the earth.

擬獅和短面熊這樣的巨大的掠食者，逐漸無法在較暖的氣候下喂養(yǎng)自己，不過它們?nèi)允堑厍蛏铣霈F(xiàn)過的一些最大最兇猛的哺乳動物。

The trap cave still holds thousands of bones, many have yet to be dug up.

陷阱地穴中仍有無數(shù)骨頭，很多仍有待于挖掘。

It's one of the richest fossil finds in North America, and one of the greatest sources of mammal fossils in the world.

這里是北美化石最富集之地之一，也是世界上哺乳動物化石的最大來源之一。