高级英语听力-VOA新闻播报 09
高级听力面向着高阶的英语学习者，其中，VOA新闻作为英语母语者的常用广播，其语速、语法、词汇等都有一定难度，适合资深学习者学习，大大提升听力水平。下面结合MP3和下方的原文及翻译，一起来挑战一下吧！
听力原文及翻译
An ancient fossil found by a girl and her father on a beach in England belongs to a creature that might have been among the largest animals ever on earth, researchers said in a recent study. That fossilized bone, called a cerangular, was from a reptile called an ichthyosaur that lived in the sea.
研究人员在最近的一项研究中表示，一名女孩和她的父亲在英国海滩上发现了一块古代化石，它属于一种可能是地球上有史以来最大的动物之一的生物。这块化石骨头被称为“cerangular”，来自一种生活在海洋中的爬行动物，叫做鱼龙。
Based on its size, compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the creature was between 22 and 26 meters long. They named it Ikthyotitan severnensis, which would make it possibly the largest known marine reptile. Its size would be close to the largest whale alive today, the blue whale. Considered the largest animal ever to have lived, it can reach about 30 meters in length. Marine reptiles lived in the world's oceans at the same time that dinosaurs lived on the land.
根据它的大小，与近亲鱼龙的同块骨头相比，研究人员估计这种生物的长度在 22 到 26 米之间。他们把它命名为 Ikthyotitan severnensis，这意味着它可能是已知最大的海洋爬行动物。它的体型接近现存最大的鲸鱼——蓝鲸。它被认为是有史以来最大的动物，长度可达约 30 米。海洋爬行动物和恐龙生活在陆地上的同时，也生活在世界海洋中。
Ikthyosaurs disappeared 90 million years ago. They came in several sizes, the creatures ate fish and other sea animals. Ictheotitan, however, is known only from two jawbones. The jaw forms the lower part of the mouth. Ruby Reynolds and her father, Justin Reynolds, found one of the bones in 2020 at Blue Anchor in Somerset. The other bone is from a different Exeotitan individual found in 2016 along the Somerset coast at Lilstuck. Dean Lomax was the lead writer of the study, published recently in Plus One.
鱼龙在 9000 万年前消失了。它们有几种大小，以鱼和其他海洋动物为食。然而，人们只知道 Ikthyotitan 有两块颌骨。颌骨构成了嘴的下部。2020 年，Ruby Reynolds 和她的父亲 Justin Reynolds 在萨默塞特郡的 Blue Anchor 发现了其中一块骨头。另一块骨头来自 2016 年在萨默塞特郡利尔斯塔克海岸发现的另一个 Exeotitan 个体。Dean Lomax 是这项研究的主要作者，该研究最近发表在 Plus One 上。
Lomax said, "It is quite remarkable to think that gigantic, blue whale-sized ichthyosaurs were swimming in the oceans around the time that dinosaurs were walking on land in what is now the UK." During the Triassic period, the Triassic period describes a time over 200 million years ago. Ruby Reynolds was 11 at the time she and her father discovered the fossil surangular bone on the beach.
Lomax 说：“想想看，巨大的蓝鲸大小的鱼龙在恐龙在现在的英国陆地上行走的时候在海洋中游泳，这真是太神奇了。”在三叠纪时期，三叠纪描述的是2亿多年前的一个时期。Ruby Reynolds和她的父亲在海滩上发现了这块上棱骨化石时，她才 11 岁。
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