新托福阅读真题材料之动物

    新托福阅读真题材料是考生们备考时的重要参考资料，能够熟练的掌握真题系列，在考场上便能运筹帷幄。今天，新航道小编给大家准备的是一篇关于动物的新托福阅读材料。

    The first flying vertebrates were true reptiles in which one of the fingers of the front limbs became very elongated, providing support for a flap of stretched skin that served as a wing. These were the pterosaurs, literally the winged lizards. The earliest pterosaurs arose near the end of the Triassic period of the Mesozoic Era, some 70 million years before the first known fossils of true birds occur, and they presumably dominated the skies until they were eventually displaced by birds. Like the dinosaurs, some the pterosaurs became gigantic; the largest fossil discovered is of an individual that had a wingspan of 50 feet or more, larger than many airplanes. These flying reptiles had large, tooth-filled jaws, but their bodies were small and probably without the necessary powerful muscles for sustained wing movement. They must have been expert gliders, not skillful fliers, relying on wind power for their locomotion. 
    Birds, despite sharing common reptilian ancestors with pterosaurs, evolved quite separately and have been much more successful in their dominance of the air. They are an example of a common theme in evolution, the more or less parallel development of different types of body structure and function for the same reason — in this case, for flight. Although the fossil record, as always, is not complete enough to determine definitively the evolutionary lineage of the birds or in as much detail as one would like, it is better in this case than for many other animal groups. That is because of the unusual preservation in a limestone quarry in southern Germany of Archaeopteryx, a fossil that many have called the link between dinosaurs and birds. Indeed, had it not been for the superb preservation of these fossils, they might well have been classified as dinosaurs. They have the skull and teeth of a reptile as well as a bony tail, but in the line-grained limestone in which these fossils occur there are delicate impressions of feathers and fine details of bone structure that make it clear that Archaeopteryx was a bird. All birds living today, from the great condors of the Andes to the tiniest wrens, trace their origin back to the Mesozoic dinosaurs. 

    翻译如下：

    次飞行的脊椎动物是真正的爬行动物，其中前四肢的一个手指变得非常拉长，拉伸为皮肤瓣的任一翼提供支持。这些是翼龙，从字面上翼蜥蜴。最早的翼龙出现接近中生代的三叠纪末，出现真正的鸟类的个已知的化石，大约7000万年前，它们大概占据了天空，直到他们最终被鸟流离失所。像恐龙，一些翼龙成为巨大的;发现的化石是个人的有50英尺以上，比许多大飞机翼展的。这些飞行的爬行动物有大，牙齿填充下巴，但他们的身体都很小，可能没有必要的有力的肌肉持续翼运动。他们一定是专家滑翔机，没有熟练的飞行员，依靠风力发电为他们的运动。  
    鸟，尽管与翼龙拥有共同祖先的爬行动物，进化相当独立，并在他们的空中霸主地位已更加成功。它们是在进化的共同主题的示例中，不同类型的身体结构和功能出于同样的原因的的更多或更少的平行的发展 - 在这种情况下，对于飞行。虽然化石记录，一如既往，不够完整，确定明确的鸟类或在尽可能多的细节一心只想进化谱系，正是在这种情况下，更好地为许多其他动物群体比。这是因为在一个石灰岩采石场异常保存在德国始祖鸟南部，一，许多人称为恐龙与鸟类之间的联系化石。事实上，如果不是因为对这些化石的保存高超，他们很可能已被列为恐龙。他们有一个爬行动物的头骨和牙齿，以及一个骨尾巴，但在该行晶灰岩中，这些化石出现有羽毛和骨骼结构的细节，使得它清楚地表明始祖鸟是鸟类的精致印象。所有生活在今天，从安第斯山脉的大兀鹰到最小的鹪鹩鸟，追查其来源回到恐龙的中生代。

    以上就是杭州新航道托福培训小编提供给大家的新托福阅读真题材料，希望对广大考生们有所启迪！