英语听力：2013-05-22 完美捕食 Perfect Predators —9
时间：2019-01-23 作者：英语课 分类：探索与发现2013年
英语课
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 prey 1 from a great distance.
A scan of Deinonychus skull 2 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 socket 3 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 vessels 4 in its retina, what we see as red-eye in flash photographs. This simple design change creates space for many more rods and cones 5 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 discriminate 6 objects with great clarity and acute vision.
These are the characteristics of an alpha or apex 7 hunter. Yet highly advanced senses aren’t their only weapon. Deinonychus is agile 8 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 agility 9. It’s a sort of animal that could probably turn on a dime 10.
n.被掠食者，牺牲者，掠食；v.捕食，掠夺，折磨
- Stronger animals prey on weaker ones.弱肉强食。
- The lion was hunting for its prey.狮子在寻找猎物。
n.头骨；颅骨
- 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。
n.窝，穴，孔，插座，插口
- 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。
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
- 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》
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
- 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
v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待
- 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。
n.顶点，最高点
- 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。
n.敏捷，活泼
- 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。