英语听力：2013-05-22 完美捕食 Perfect Predators —9

 And Sauroposeidon like most plant eaters are smelly. Unlike a meat eater, they produce huge amounts of waste, feces that form a trail marking everywhere they’ve been. For Deinonychus, that odor is a dead giveaway. And this carnivore’s eyes can clearly see prey¹ from a great distance.

 

A scan of Deinonychus skull² reveals a brain with an oversized optic nerve, the nerve which transmits visual information from the eyes. 

 

The optic nerve is very large, too. And the eye socket³ is very large. 

 

 

 

It’s like having a broadband connection between the eyes and the brain. This high-speed link means Deinonychus can react quickly to even subtle changes in its environment. 

 

If we look at the Deinonychus eye, it’s probably gonna be about an inch across, a lot of space in there for photoreceptors. It could see well at night. It would have just a superb sense of sight.

 

Unlike a mammal, Deinonychus has no blood vessels⁴ in its retina, what we see as red-eye in flash photographs. This simple design change creates space for many more rods and cones⁵ more than twice the number of photoreceptors found in the human retina. And the additional rods means Deinonychus can see in the dark as if looking through night-vision googles. 

 

This animal had very sensitive vision being able to actually discriminate⁶ objects with great clarity and acute vision. 

 

These are the characteristics of an alpha or apex⁷ hunter. Yet highly advanced senses aren’t their only weapon. Deinonychus is agile⁸ and can reach speeds of 60 kilometers per hour. And, it has almost-perfect balance. 

 

It would have been swift. It would have been swifter than a human being certainly, but its real ability would have been agility⁹. It’s a sort of animal that could probably turn on a dime¹⁰.

1 prey   

n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨

参考例句：

• Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
• The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。

2 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

3 socket   

n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口

参考例句：

• He put the electric plug into the socket.他把电插头插入插座。
• The battery charger plugs into any mains socket.这个电池充电器可以插入任何类型的电源插座。

4 vessels   

n.血管( vessel的名词复数 )；船；容器；（具有特殊品质或接受特殊品质的）人

参考例句：

• The river is navigable by vessels of up to 90 tons. 90 吨以下的船只可以从这条河通过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• All modern vessels of any size are fitted with radar installations. 所有现代化船只都有雷达装置。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

5 cones   

n.（人眼）圆锥细胞；圆锥体( cone的名词复数 )；球果；圆锥形东西；（盛冰淇淋的）锥形蛋卷筒

参考例句：

• In the pines squirrels commonly chew off and drop entire cones. 松树上的松鼠通常咬掉和弄落整个球果。 来自辞典例句
• Many children would rather eat ice cream from cones than from dishes. 许多小孩喜欢吃蛋卷冰淇淋胜过盘装冰淇淋。 来自辞典例句

6 discriminate   

v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待

参考例句：

• You must learn to discriminate between facts and opinions.你必须学会把事实和看法区分出来。
• They can discriminate hundreds of colours.他们能分辨上百种颜色。

7 apex   

n.顶点，最高点

参考例句：

• He reached the apex of power in the early 1930s.他在三十年代初达到了权力的顶峰。
• His election to the presidency was the apex of his career.当选总统是他一生事业的顶峰。

8 agile   

adj.敏捷的，灵活的

参考例句：

• She is such an agile dancer!她跳起舞来是那么灵巧！
• An acrobat has to be agile.杂技演员必须身手敏捷。

9 agility   

n.敏捷，活泼

参考例句：

• The boy came upstairs with agility.那男孩敏捷地走上楼来。
• His intellect and mental agility have never been in doubt.他的才智和机敏从未受到怀疑。

10 dime   

n.（指美国、加拿大的钱币）一角

参考例句：

• A dime is a tenth of a dollar.一角银币是十分之一美元。
• The liberty torch is on the back of the dime.自由火炬在一角硬币的反面。