万物简史 第472期:生命在前进(14)（在线收听） |
Today some of Sprigg's original Ediacaran specimens, along with many of the other fifteen hundred specimens that have been found throughout the Flinders Range since that time, 今天，斯普里格的埃迪亚卡拉标本原件，与自那以后在整个弗林德斯山脉所发现的其他1500件标本中的许多标本一起， can be seen in a glass case in an upstairs room of the stout and lovely South Australian Museum in Adelaide, but they don't attract a great deal of attention. 陈列在阿德莱德南澳大利亚州博物馆楼上的一个玻璃柜里，但是没有吸引多少注意力。
The delicately etched patterns are rather faint and not terribly arresting to the untrained eye. 上面蚀出的精美图案不大清楚，对没有受过训练的人来说没有多大吸引力。
They are mostly small and discshaped, with occasional, vague trailing ribbons. 它们大多很小，呈圆盘形，偶尔带有隐约的条纹。
Fortey has described them as "soft-bodied oddities." 福泰把它们称为“软体怪物”。
There is still very little agreement about what these things were or how they lived. 这些是什么东西，它们是怎么生活的，人们的看法远非一致。
They had, as far as can be told, no mouth or anus with which to take in and discharge digestive materials, 从表面看来，它们没有用来进食的嘴巴，也没有用来排泄废物的肛门，
and no internal organs with which to process them along the way. 根本没有用来消化食物的内脏器官。
"In life," Fortey says, "most of them probably simply lay upon the surface of the sandy sediment, like soft, structureless and inanimate flatfish." “在生活中，”福泰说，“它们大多数很可能就趴在砂质沉积物的表面，就像没有固定形状、毫无生气、软绵绵的比目鱼那样。”
At their liveliest, they were no more complex than jellyfish. 在最活泼的时候，它们也不会比水母更复杂。
All the Ediacaran creatures were diploblastic, meaning they were built from two layers of tissue. 埃迪亚卡拉动物都是双胚层的，即它们由两层组织构成。
With the exception of jellyfish, all animals today are triploblastic. 除了水母以外，今天所有的动物都是三胚层的。
Some experts think they weren't animals at all, but more like plants or fungi. 有的专家认为，它们根本不是动物，而更像是植物或真菌。
The distinctions between plant and animal are not always clear even now. 即使现在，植物和动物的界线并不总是很分明。
The modern sponge spends its life fixed to a single spot and has no eyes or brain or beating heart, and yet is an animal. " 现代海绵一辈子固定在一个地方，既没有眼睛，也没有大脑，更没有搏动的心脏，然而它是动物。 |
| 原文地址：http://www.tingroom.com/lesson/syysdw/wwwjs/454447.html |