你想知道却又不敢问的关于霸王龙的一切

你想知道却又不敢问的关于雷克斯霸王龙的一切

Icons come and go, especially when it comes to the star-studded pantheon of dinosaurs.

偶像来了又走，尤其是在众星云集的恐龙神殿。

One day, the triceratops is all the rage. Those distinctive horns, that 10-ton girth and ... is that a beak? But peace-loving vegetarian dinosaurs, no matter how interesting they appear, just don't have a long shelf life in the popular imagination.

曾经，三角龙风靡一时。那些与众不同的角，10吨重的腰围，还有……那是鸟嘴吗?但是爱好和平的素食恐龙，不管它们看起来多么有趣，只是在大众的想象中没有很长的保质期。

There’s still a lot we don’t know about this fearsome dinosaur, but what we do know is fascinating. (Photo: sruilk/Shutterstock)

Who wants to be remembered as king of the salad bar?

谁想被人铭记为沙拉吧之王?

The T. rex wasn't the salad type. (Photo: Herschel Hoffmeyer/Shutterstock)

Then there was the upstart velociraptor! Fast. Smart. Vicious!

然后是暴发户迅猛龙!速度快。聪明。凶恶!

But much of that hype faded when paleontologists politely pointed out that velociraptors weren't quite the sprinting razor blades that terrified us in the "Jurassic Park" movies. They had feathers and probably looked more like big chickens.

但当古生物学家礼貌地指出迅猛龙并不是《侏罗纪公园》(Jurassic Park)电影中令我们感到恐惧的那种疾跑刀片时，这种大肆宣传就烟消云散了。它们有羽毛，可能看起来更像大鸡。

It's been around 70 million years since the T. rex stalked the Earth, waving its twiggy arms around and treating its contemporaries like chicken.

自从霸王龙在地球上昂首阔步，挥舞着它那弯曲的手臂，像对待小鸡一样对待同时代的动物，距今已经有7000万年的历史了。

But why is it that for humans — who only ever got to dust off their old bones — the nightmares remain so vivid?

但是为什么对于人类来说——他们只能掸去旧骨头上的灰尘——噩梦仍然如此生动?

1.They were actually pretty ferocious.

它们实际上非常凶猛。

All that we have to remember the T. rex by today are some intimidating bones. (Photo: Marques/Shutterstock)

Its name is a mix of Latin and Greek — as if first coined by a flustered paleontologist too freaked out to get the ancient languages straight. But "Tyrant Lizard King" definitely gets the scary factor perfectly straight.

它的名字是拉丁语和希腊语的混合体——就好像最初是由一位惊慌失措的古生物学家创造出来的，因为他太过害怕而无法把这些古老的语言搞清楚。但是《蜥蜴之王》绝对把这个可怕的因素说得很清楚。

2.A T. rex could beat you at chess ... if you were as smart as a chimp.

雷克斯霸王龙下棋能赢你……如果你像黑猩猩一样聪明。

In the case of the T. rex, brains came long before brawn. (Photo: CapturePB/Shutterstock)

"Tyrannosaurs got smart before they got big, and they got big quickly right at the end of the time of the dinosaurs," Steve Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh in the U.K., told Live Science.

英国爱丁堡大学的古生物学家Steve Brusatte告诉Live Science:“暴龙在变大之前就变得聪明了，它们在恐龙时代末期很快就变大了。”

3. Their senses were also razor-sharp.

它们的感官也非常敏锐。

The T. rex likely had eyes a little bigger than tennis balls. (Photo: Martina Badini/Shutterstock.com)

Those big brains had other amenities too. Like massive olfactory bulbs allowing a T. rex to catch the faintest whiff of dinner and come running. Its sense of smell was, like so many things, far superior to its contemporaries. Even worse for those lesser-endowed animals was the possibility the T. rex enjoyed hunting them at night.

那些大脑袋还有其他的便利设施。就像巨大的嗅球让雷克斯霸王龙捕捉到最微弱的晚餐气味，然后跑过来。它的嗅觉，就像其他许多东西一样，远远优于同时代的动物。对于那些天赋较差的动物来说，更糟糕的是，雷克斯霸王龙可能喜欢在晚上捕猎它们。

4. Let's talk about those arms.

我们来谈谈它们的手臂

The T. rex may have kept its arms facing inward. (Photo: JopsStock/Shutterstock)

It's a good thing the T. rex was so "handy" with its face because those twiggy little arms don't seem like they were good for much. In fact, they may not have been long enough to even touch its face. And compared to those tree trunks it had for legs, they seem altogether inadequate.

雷克斯霸王龙的脸如此“方便”是件好事，因为那些细枝小臂似乎没什么用。事实上，它们可能还没有长到能够触摸到它的脸。和它用来做腿的树干相比，它们似乎完全不够用。