数百万年前，一只小型有袋类狮子潜伏在澳大利亚古老的热带雨林中

数百万年前，一只小型有袋类狮子潜伏在澳大利亚古老的热带雨林中

Long before the time of humans, this small but deadly marsupial lion raised hell in the ancient rainforests of Australia. Some 24 million years later, researchers have taken a second look at fossilized remains of this unusual marsupial lion and discovered it actually belongs to a never-before-seen genus of animals.

早在人类出现之前，这种体型虽小但致命的有袋类狮子就在澳大利亚的古代雨林中制造了地狱。大约2400万年后，研究人员对这种不寻常的有袋类狮子的化石遗迹进行了第二次研究，发现它实际上属于一个从未见过的动物属。

The remains of the marsupial lion were first discovered in the late 1980s at the Riversleigh World Heritage Area in Queensland and were initially believed to belong to a carnivorous marsupial, Priscileo roskellyae. Reporting in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, researchers from the University of New South Wales have recently reevaluated the shape and structures of the beast's teeth and lower jaw to find that it actually belonged to a new genus of marsupial lion, Lekaneleo roskellyae, nicknamed Leo.

这种有袋类狮子的遗骸于20世纪80年代末在昆士兰的Riversleigh世界遗产地区首次被发现，最初人们认为它属于一种食肉有袋类动物Priscileo roskellyae。据《脊椎动物古生物学杂志》报道，新南威尔士大学的研究人员最近重新评估了这种动物的牙齿和下颌的形状和结构，发现它实际上属于一个有袋类狮子的新属，Lekaneleo roskellyae，昵称Leo。

“As we found more and better specimens at Riversleigh, we began to realize it didn't belong to that group at all. It was a new kind of marsupial that hadn't been seen before. It was a different branch on the marsupial lion family tree," study author Michael Archer, professor of biological, earth, and environmental science at the University of New South Wales, told CNN.

“随着我们在里弗斯利发现更多更好的标本，我们开始意识到它根本不属于那个群体。这是一种以前从未见过的有袋动物。这项研究的作者、新南威尔士大学生物、地球和环境科学教授迈克尔·阿彻在接受CNN采访时表示。

Tom Hale

Despite its name, the animal is not closely related to lions. In fact, the genus doesn't have any close relatives alive on Earth today, so it's tough to truly understand how Leo might have behaved. However, it does possess some stand-out features that provide some strong hints of how the species might have coped with the massively complex ecosystem of Australia's ancient forests.

尽管它的名字叫有袋类狮子，但它不是与狮子密切相关的动物。事实上，这个属在地球上没有任何近亲，所以很难真正理解利奥的行为。然而，它确实拥有一些突出的特征，为这个物种如何应对澳大利亚古老森林庞大复杂的生态系统提供了有力的线索。

"In Australia, the marsupial lions were the supremely specialised carnivores throughout at least the last 30 million years of Australian history," Archer told ABC News.

“在澳大利亚，至少在3000万年的历史中，有袋类狮子是最特别的食肉动物，”Archer告诉ABC新闻。

It was armed with razor-shape teeth, which the researchers compare to mini bolt-cutters. Although no larger than a domestic cat, the lion is thought to have been a sneaky and fierce predator of small animals during the Oligocene–Miocene of Australia, living among the area’s trees and hunting small mammals, snakes, and reptiles.

它长着剃刀形状的牙齿，研究人员将其比作微型螺栓切割机。虽然狮子不比家猫大，但人们认为，在澳大利亚渐新世-中新世时期，狮子是一种狡猾而凶猛的小型动物捕食者，生活在该地区的树林中，捕食小型哺乳动物、蛇和爬行动物。

"They had an extraordinary, elongated, bolt-cutting type of premolar," Archer told ABC News. "This was the most extraordinary adaptation or evolution that a carnivorous mammal has ever developed anywhere in the world. It is capable of slicing straight through bones."

阿彻告诉美国广播公司新闻网:“它们的前磨牙长得很特别，修长，可以用螺栓切断。”“这是食肉哺乳动物在世界上任何地方最不寻常的适应或进化。它可以直接穿透骨头。”

Australasia and the Americas are the sole kingdoms of marsupials, a peculiar bunch of mammals that give birth to underdeveloped young that continue to grow in the mother's pouch. Some of their most famous members include kangaroos, wallabies, and koalas.

大洋洲和美洲是有袋类动物的唯一王国，有袋类动物是一种特殊的哺乳动物，它们生下发育不全的幼仔，幼仔继续在母亲的育儿袋里生长。它们最著名的成员包括袋鼠、小袋鼠和树袋熊。

The new member of this gang is part of the same family as the thylacine, aka the Tasmanian tiger. This species was the only member of the Thylacinidae family to survive into modern times, however, it plunged into extinction over 80 years ago when the last living individual died at a Washington DC zoo in 1936.

这个团伙的新成员和袋狼属于同一个家族，也就是塔斯马尼亚虎。这个物种是袋狼家族中唯一存活到现代的成员，然而，在80多年前，当最后一个存活的个体1936年死于华盛顿特区动物园时，袋狼就陷入了灭绝的边缘。