強風席捲過白堊紀晚期的蒙古戈壁,低矮的灌木與沙丘,在灼熱的日落中拉出長長的陰影。在這片半乾旱荒原中,一道嬌小身影迅速閃過,迅猛龍正準備捕食。
電影裡看到的迅猛龍高大兇猛,比人還高,但牠們其實短小精悍,尺寸非常迷你,體型跟現代的中型犬差不多,科學家在牠的手臂骨頭上找到了羽毛附著的痕跡,證實牠們是現代鳥類的近親,真實的迅猛龍長得像一隻擁有牙齒和爪子、不會飛的火雞。電影裡迅猛龍是團體行動,經古生物學最新研究顯示,牠們其實是冷酷的獨行俠,只有在發現大型獵物時會群聚爭搶食物,而且在分食的過程中,還會為了搶肉而互咬,甚至把弱小的同類一起吃掉。
恐龍從未真正消失,歷經億萬年演化,牠們化作飛鳥,至今仍翱翔天際。演化,是一條綿延不絕的旅程,而生命總會為自己找到出路。
A hard wind sweeps the late-Cretaceous Gobi of Mongolia. Low shrubs and dunes throw long shadows in a burning sunset. Across this semi-arid waste a slight shape flashes past. The raptor is about to hunt.
The raptors in the films are tall and fierce, taller than a person, but they were in fact small and spare, very slight, about the size of a modern medium dog. Scientists found traces of feather attachment on the arm bones, proof they are close kin of modern birds. A true raptor looked like a turkey with teeth and claws that could not fly. In the films they hunt as a pack. The newest work in paleontology shows they were in fact cold loners, gathering only when a large kill appeared, to fight over the food; and in the sharing they would bite one another for the meat, even eating the weaker of their own kind.
Dinosaurs never truly vanished. Across hundreds of millions of years they became birds, and still ride the sky. Evolution is a journey without end, and life always finds a way.