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It's not often that one can see and touch a skull that is about the size of a Smart car, is around 70 million years old and looks like a mutant blend of a triceratops and a giant parrot. |
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That's just what scientists are doing after the discovery of a Pachyrhinosaurus fossil in Canada. |
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我們並不是經常有機會能夠看見以及觸摸一顆和 Smart 汽車差不多大小的頭骨，不但歷史有七千萬年之久，而且看起來像是三角龍與巨大鸚鵡混合而成的變種生物。不過，科學家在加拿大發現一個厚鼻龍化石之後，正在著手觀察研究。 |
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University of Calgary paleontologist Darla Zelenitsky first made the mammoth find in Alberta's Badlands, then revealed it to the world Thursday. |
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卡加利大學古生物學家妲拉．澤倫尼茨基首先在亞伯達省巴德蘭獲致這項重大發現，然後在週四向世人公開。 |
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"It almost looks like some sort of mythical beast," Zelenitsky said. "Because it is so big and mature, it makes for a very strange-looking individual." |
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「這個化石看起來幾乎像是某種神話怪獸，」澤倫尼茨基說：「因為它非常大又成熟，因此看起來是個非常古怪的個體。」 |
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This isn't the first Pachyrhinosaurus discovery -- that came around the mid-20th century -- and there have been other notable such finds since then in Canada's Alberta province and Alaska. |
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這不是第一次發現厚鼻龍化石──最早的厚鼻龍化石發現於二十世紀中葉──而且後來在加拿大亞伯達省與（美國）阿拉斯加也有其他這種引人矚目的發現。 |
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But what makes this one unique is how well preserved the skull is, the fact that it's from an? older Pachyrhinosaurus and, of course, its immense size. |
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不過，這項發現之所以獨特，是在於這顆頭骨的保存狀況非常良好，而且屬於一頭年紀較大的厚鼻龍，當然還有因為這顆頭骨非常巨大。 |
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Not that Zelenitsky's team knew all that when they spotted a bumpy rock in mid-October while exploring Drumheller in southern Alberta -- a town that, given the outcrops that make it a paleontologists' dream, calls itself the dinosaur capital of the world for a reason. |
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倒不是說澤倫尼茨基的團隊在十月中旬發現一顆凹凸不平岩石的時候就知道了這一切，當時他們正在探索亞伯達省南部的德蘭赫勒，那座城鎮的化石露頭是古生物學家的夢想，能自稱為世界恐龍之都也不無道理。 |
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A little digging led to more digging and, after about three days, to the realization that they'd found a gigantic dinosaur skull. |
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It took several more months to unearth it in three pieces and show it off to the world. |
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初步的挖掘後繼續更進一步，結果在三天左右之後才意識到他們發現了一顆巨大的恐龍頭骨。他們又花了幾個月的時間才挖出這顆裂成三塊的頭骨，而得以展示在世人眼前。 |
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Still, a lot more work needs to be done to peel away the surrounding rock that still remains so that the skull can be seen in full and examined in more detail. |
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儘管如此，接下來還有更多工作要做，才能剝除仍附著在化石周圍的岩石，好讓化石完整呈現出來以及接受更仔細的檢查。 |
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