雅思听力对话：听力材料-渡渡鸟的灭绝
雅思听力在考试中占据着重要的地位，时常用听力材料来磨耳朵可以不断巩固大脑的英语语言能力。以下是雅思听力材料，您可以结合MP3和下方的原文及翻译进行听力学习。
听力原文及翻译
One of the most famous cases of extinction is that of a bird known as the dodo. In fact, there's even a saying in English, "as dead as the dodo," used to refer to something which no longer exists. But for many centuries, the dodo was alive and well, although it could only be found in one place: the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. It was a very large bird, about 1 metre tall, and over the centuries, it had lost the ability to fly, but it survived happily under the trees that covered the island.
最著名的灭绝案例之一是一种名为渡渡鸟的鸟类。事实上，英语中甚至有一句谚语“死得和渡渡鸟一样”，用来指不再存在的东西。但许多世纪以来，渡渡鸟一直活得很好，尽管它只能在一个地方找到：印度洋上的毛里求斯岛。它是一种非常大的鸟，大约 1 米高，几个世纪以来，它已经失去了飞翔的能力，但它在覆盖岛屿的树木下快乐地生存着。
Then, in the year 1507, the first Portuguese ships stopped at the island. The sailors were carrying spices back to Europe and found the island a convenient stopping place where they could stock up with food and water for the rest of the voyage. But they didn't settle on Mauritius. However, in 1638, the Dutch arrived and set up a colony there. These first human inhabitants of the island found the dodo birds a convenient source of meat, although not everyone liked the taste.
然后，在 1507 年，第一批葡萄牙船只停泊在该岛。水手们正带着香料返回欧洲，发现这个岛屿是一个方便的停靠点，他们可以在那里为接下来的航程储备食物和水。但他们并没有在毛里求斯定居。然而，在 1638 年，荷兰人来到这里并在那里建立了殖民地。岛上的第一批人类居民发现渡渡鸟是一种方便的肉食来源，尽管并非所有人都喜欢它的味道。
It's hard to get an accurate description of what the dodo actually looked like. We do have some written records from sailors and a few pictures, but we don't know how reliable these are. The best-known picture is a Dutch painting in which the bird appears to be extremely fat, but this may not be accurate. An Indian painting done at the same time shows a much thinner bird. Although attempts were made to preserve the bodies of some of the birds, no complete specimen survives.
很难准确描述渡渡鸟的长相。我们确实有一些水手的书面记录和几张照片，但我们不知道这些记录有多可靠。最著名的一幅画是一幅荷兰画，画中的渡渡鸟看起来非常胖，但这可能并不准确。同时期的一幅印度画则展示了一只瘦得多的渡渡鸟。尽管人们试图保存一些渡渡鸟的尸体，但没有完整的标本留存下来。
In the early 17th century, four dried parts of a bird were known to exist; of these, three have disappeared, so only one example of soft tissue from the dodo survives: a dodo head. Bones have also been found, but there's only one complete skeleton in existence. This single dodo skeleton has recently been the subject of scientific research, which suggests that many of the earlier beliefs about dodos may have been incorrect.
在 17 世纪初，人们知道存在鸟的四个干燥部分；其中三个已经消失，因此渡渡鸟只有一个软组织样本留存下来：渡渡鸟头。骨头也被发现，但只有一具完整的骨架存在。这具渡渡鸟骨架最近成为科学研究的主题，这表明许多早期关于渡渡鸟的信念可能是错误的。
For example, early accounts of the birds mention how slow and clumsy it was, but scientists now believe the birds strong knee joints would have made it capable of movement, which was not slow, but actually quite fast.
例如，早期对鸟类的记载提到了它们的动作是多么缓慢和笨拙，但现在科学家认为，鸟类强健的膝关节使它们能够移动，这种移动并不缓慢，实际上相当快。
以上就是本期的雅思听力练习，希望对您的听力水平有所帮助。您也可以访问网站主页，获取最新的英语学习资料，全方位提升英语能力。
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