古生物学家揭示了地球历史上“最危险”的位置

With enormous, flying predatory reptiles, dinosaurs, and crocodile-like hunters once roaming the landscape, 100 million years ago, the Sahara was the most dangerous place on the planet, according to palaeontologists.

据古生物学家说，1亿年前，撒哈拉沙漠是地球上最危险的地方，到处都是体型庞大、会飞的掠食性爬行动物、恐龙和像鳄鱼一样的猎人。

Madison Dapcevich

Located along the border of Morocco and Algeria is the Kem Kem Group, a well-documented and highly fossiliferous rock formation that holds records of Earth’s lifeforms spanning tens of millions of years. Here, the fossilized remains of cartilaginous and bony fishes, turtles, pterosaurs, dinosaurs, as well as plants and trace fossils have been documented by palaeontologists for decades. The Kem Kem Formation has an unusually high amount of large-bodied carnivores and captures the diversity of northern Africa better than any other assemblage found from the continent.

位于摩洛哥和阿尔及利亚边界的是Kem Kem群，这是一个有大量记录的化石岩层，保存着地球上数千万年的生命形式的记录。在这里，软骨和硬骨鱼类、海龟、翼龙、恐龙以及植物和微量化石的化石遗迹已经被古生物学家记录了几十年。Kem Kem组拥有数量异常庞大的大型食肉动物，比在该大陆发现的任何其他组合都能更好地捕捉到北非的多样性。

Publishing their work in Zookeys, an international team of scientists compared decades’ worth of expedition notes and records from Kem Kem, as well as reviewed data sets of fossil records housed in museums around the world. The result is what researchers call the “most comprehensive piece of work on fossil vertebrates from the Sahara in almost a century,” and provides insights into the location and date of when and where they think was the most dangerous place to be in the history of Earth.

一个国际科学家团队在Zookeys上发表了他们的研究成果，他们比较了几十年来Kem Kem的探险笔记和记录，以及世界各地博物馆收藏的化石记录的数据集。研究人员称这一成果是“近一个世纪以来对撒哈拉沙漠脊椎动物化石最全面的研究”，并提供了他们认为地球历史上最危险的地方的位置和日期。

Continental red beds at the Aoufous Formation have offered up fossils of a wide range of creatures. Ibrahim et al., 2020, Zookeys

During the Cretaceous period, the area surrounding Kem Kem was once home to a vast river system home to different species of aquatic and terrestrial animals. The fossils indicate at least three of the largest predatory dinosaurs ever documented, including the 8-meter-long saber-toothed Carcharodontosaurus and the similarly sized Deltadromeus raptor, as well as pterosaurs – which are basically giant flying crocodiles, roamed there.

在白垩纪时期，Kem Kem周围的地区曾经是一个巨大的河流系统，是各种水生和陆生动物的家园。这些化石表明，至少有三种记录在案的最大的食肉恐龙，包括8米长的剑齿虎Carcharodontosaurus和同样大小的Deltadromeus raptor，以及翼龙——它们基本上是在那里游荡的巨型飞行鳄鱼。

“This was arguably the most dangerous place in the history of planet Earth, a place where a human time-traveler would not last very long,” said lead author Dr Nizar Ibrahim, an Assistant Professor of Biology at the University of Detroit Mercy, in a statement.

“这可能是地球行星历史上最危险的地方，在这里，人类时间旅行者不会持续很长时间，”该研究的第一作者、底特律大学生物学助理教授尼扎尔·易卜拉欣博士在一份声明中说。

Just as terrifying as the giant animals that roamed the landscape were the animals that they preyed upon – huge, terrifyingly monstrous fish.

和在这片土地上游荡的巨型动物一样可怕的是它们捕食的动物——巨大、可怕的怪鱼。

"This place was filled with absolutely enormous fish, including giant coelacanths and lungfish. The coelacanth, for example, is probably four or even five times large than today's coelacanth. There is an enormous freshwater saw shark called Onchopristis with the most fearsome of rostral teeth, they are like barbed daggers, but beautifully shiny,” said study co-author Professor David Martill from the University of Portsmouth.

“这个地方到处都是巨大无比的鱼，包括巨大的腔棘鱼和肺鱼。例如，腔棘鱼可能比今天的腔棘鱼大四到五倍。有一种叫做Onchopristis的巨大的淡水锯鳐，它有着最可怕的夜北侧牙齿，它们就像有刺的匕首，但闪闪发光。”

The authors add that the review "provides a window into Africa's Age of Dinosaurs."

作者补充说，这篇综述“为了解非洲的恐龙时代打开了一扇窗”。

Dragonfly larva (Odonata indet) from the Douira Formation. Scale bar equals 5 mm. Zookeys

Serenoichthys kemkemensis seen in 1999 at the Douira Formation. Scale bar equals 1 cm. Zookeys

Decapod prawn Cretapenaeus berberus from Oum Tkout, Douira Formation. Scale bar equals 5 mm. Zookeys

The geographical setting of the Kem Kem region and outcrops (A). A view of the position of Morocco in Africa and the location of the Kem Kem beds (shown in red). A map (B) showing the geographical location of the Kem Kem in North Africa relative to roughly coeval sites in northern Africa. Cretaceous outcrops along with the Kem Kem and Guir Hamadas (C). Zookeys