But transitional forms are also the rarest of beasts. 不过过渡型物种也是最罕见的动物 By their very nature they were few in number and lived for just a short intermediate time until a wholly new animal evolved. 从它们的性质不难看...
The missing link had to be what Charles Darwin called a transitional form. 进化缺环必须是达尔文所谓的过渡型物种 These lie at the very heart of his Theory of Evolution because they show how one animal can mutate into another. 它们是...
But then the doubts crept in. 可是后来一些怀疑的声音却掺杂进来。 Only Jarvik had ever analysed the ichthyostega fossil and you just had to take his word for it, 只有Jarvik研究过这块鱼石螈化石，人们只能参照他的说法...
People had been looking for this in a way ever since Darwin, ever since 1859. 可以说自从1859年，从达尔文开始，人们一直都在寻找这只动物 This transition is the one that so intrigued everybody going from the water to the land a...
Some could then have evolved on land. 有的后来在陆地上进化 Their fins became legs, they grew five fingers and toes, they started to walk. 它们的鳍变成了腿，长出了5根趾或爪，它们开始行走 They became tetrapods, our ance...
Finding that fish fossil proved easy. By the turn of the 19th century 寻找那条鱼的化石好像并不难。到了19世纪末 all eyes were on a Devonian group called the lobe-finned. 所有目光都聚集在泥盆纪的一类鱼身上，它们叫做...
To prove it they thought they needed just two fossils. 他们认为证明这一观点只需要两块化石 They needed the first tetrapod, the very first land walking creature with four legs with five toes 他们需要找到第一只四足动物，第一...
We are tetrapods, to whit one, two, three, four. 我们是四足动物，瞧着，1，2，3，4 Every mammal, every dog, cat is, is a tetrapod, four legs. 所有哺乳动物、每只狗、每只猫都是四足动物，都有4条腿 A horse is a tetra...
Darwin said the answer would lie out there in the rocks. 达尔文说过，答案就躺在岩石堆里 Somewhere there would be fossils that would explain everything. 某个地方的化石应该能解释一切 Palaeontologists would go scurrying all...
In an obscure museum in eastern Europe a fossil hunter has made a momentous discovery. 这里是东欧一间昏暗的博物馆，一位化石专家在此有了重大发现 The young palaeontologist was randomly sifting through a collection of drawers...
