新发现的古代食肉动物，以汉索洛的千年猎鹰命名
新发现的古代食肉动物，以汉索洛的千年猎鹰命名
Hundreds of fossils of a primordial sea creature with rake-like claws and a head resembling a famous fictional spaceship have been unearthed in Canada, providing a wealth of information about an important predator from a key time in the evolution of life on Earth.
日前，加拿大出土了数百具原始海洋生物化石，它们的爪子呈耙子状，头部酷似一艘著名的科幻宇宙飞船。这些化石为我们提供了有关地球生命进化关键时期一种重要捕食者的大量信息。
Scientists on Tuesday said the creature, called Cambroraster falcatus, was a distant relative of today’s arthropods — the diverse group of animals including insects, spiders and crabs — and lived during the Cambrian Period 506 million years ago, when all animal life lived in the oceans.
本周二，科学家们表示，这种名为镰形Cambroraster的生物与今天的节肢动物(包括昆虫、蜘蛛和螃蟹等多种动物)是远亲，生活在5.06亿年前的寒武纪时期，当时所有的动物都生活在海洋中。
“Most animals in the Cambrian Period were small, typically a few centimeters long at most. By comparison, Cambroraster was a giant, at up to a foot long (30 cm),” said paleontologist Joe Moysiuk of the Royal Ontario Museum and University of Toronto, lead author of the research published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“寒武纪的大多数动物都很小，通常最多只有几厘米长。相比之下，Cambroraster就是一个巨人，长达一英尺(30厘米)。”该报告的主要作者、皇家安大略博物馆和多伦多大学的古生物学家莫伊苏克表示。
Cambroraster was excavated in Kootenay National Park in the Canadian Rockies from a rock formation known as the Burgess Shale that has yielded fossils of a wondrous array of Cambrian animals. The Cambrian was a time of evolutionary experimentation when nearly all major animal groups first appeared and numerous oddballs came and went.
Cambroraster是在加拿大落基山脉的Kootenay国家公园从一个名为伯吉斯页岩的岩层中挖掘出来的，这个岩层中发现了一系列奇妙的寒武纪动物化石。寒武纪是一个进化的时期，几乎所有主要的动物群体都是在这个时期首次出现的，并且有许多奇形怪状的动物来来去去。
“With its huge head, small body and upward-facing eyes, Cambroraster superficially resembles a horseshoe crab, although in detail they are quite different animals,” Moysiuk said. “Just like horseshoe crabs, we think Cambroraster spent its time hanging around near the seafloor, feeding on organisms buried in the mud.”
莫伊苏克说：“由于巨大的头部、小巧的身体和向上的眼睛，表面上看起来像一只马蹄蟹，尽管在细节上它们是完全不同的动物。”“就像马蹄蟹一样，我们认为它会花时间在海底附近徘徊，以埋在泥里的生物为食。”
Its large head was covered by a shield-like carapace whose shape reminded the scientists of the Millennium Falcon spaceship of “Star Wars” fame.
它的大脑袋上盖着一个盾状的甲壳，它的形状让科学家们想起了因《星球大战》而闻名的千年隼号宇宙飞船。
At the front of its body were two large claws with a succession of parallel outgrowths like a series of rakes, letting it sift through seafloor mud and strain out any prey. Tooth-like plates surrounded its circular mouth. It may have dined upon worms, small fish and larvae.
在它的身体前部有两个巨大的爪，爪上有一系列类似耙的平行生长物，让它在海底泥浆中筛选，并滤出任何猎物。牙齿状的盘子包围着它的圆形嘴。它可能以蠕虫、小鱼和幼虫为食。
It belonged to the same group — radiodonts — as the apex predator of the time, called Anomalocaris, a dangerous hunter reaching three feet (one meter) long that may even have targeted Cambroraster.
它与当时的顶级掠食者——radiodonts——属同一类群，被称为“奇虾”，是一种危险的猎手，身长可达3英尺(1米)，甚至可能把Cambroraster当作目标。
Radiodonts, among the earliest offshoots of the arthropod lineage, are usually known from fragmentary remains. But the scientists found such a large number of beautifully preserved and complete Cambroraster fossils that they achieved a breakthrough in the understanding of this significant extinct group.
放射体是节肢动物谱系中最早的分支之一，通常是从残片中发现的。但是，科学家们发现了如此大量保存完好、完整的寒武纪化石，他们在了解这一重要的灭绝物种方面取得了突破。
