Jurassic bugs 最老昆虫琥珀

Wonderfully protected and preserved

媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。

科学家们说，他们在意大利北部的阿尔卑斯山地区发现了一种有史以来保存完好的最古老昆虫琥珀。这一国际科研成果刊登在最新发表的《国家科学院学报》上。BBC 记者 Mark Duff 有以下报道：

High in the Dolomites of northeastern Italy, Italian researchers chipping away at rocks formed more than 200 million years ago found two miniscule mites and a fly preserved in tiny drops of amber. Highly-magnified photographs of the creatures show the mites, in particular, to be perfectly preserved. At 230 million years old, they're about 100 million years older than the oldest previous find of their kind.

The bugs probably fed off the leaves of the tree in whose resin they were eventually preserved. Researchers say the discovery shows the mites' ability to adapt to changing evolutionary conditions. For film lovers, though, it has striking echoes of the Stephen Spielberg blockbuster, Jurassic Park, in which a team of scientists use the DNA of a mosquito preserved in amber to recreate dinosaurs with predictably terrifying results.