His name is George. He’s Peppa Pig’s baby brother. And he loves roaring, “Dinosaur!”. Hey, don’t we all? And now George has something else to roar for; a perfectly-preserved dinosaur embryo fossil discovered in China providing us with the “bird link”.
他的名字叫乔治。他是小猪佩奇的弟弟。他喜欢咆哮，“恐龙！”。嘿，我们都不是吗？现在乔治还有其他值得咆哮的事情： a perfectly-preserved dinosaur embryo fossil discovered in China providing us with the “bird link”.
This solstice, 21 December, saw the report published outlining the fossil find, that of a complete baby dinosaur in its egg. But the kicker is the bones of the fossilised embryo show it to be exhibiting exactly the kind of behaviour displayed by birds directly before they hatch.
This solstice, 21 December, saw the report published outlining the fossil find, that of a complete baby dinosaur in its egg.但令人惊奇的是，化石胚胎的骨骼表明它所表现出的行为与鸟类在孵化前所表现出的行为完全相同。
The extremely rare find was made at the Yingliang Stone Natural History Museum in Xiamen City of Fujian Province. Elsewhere, there been perhaps only half a dozen similar finds.
这一极其罕见的发现是在福建省厦门市英良石自然历史博物馆发现的。在其他地方，类似的发现可能只有六处。
But none display the near-conclusive signs of the evolutionary link between dinosaurs and birds that Baby Yingliang does, it being named after the museum where it was found.
但没有一个像婴儿英亮那样显示出恐龙和鸟类之间进化联系的近乎确凿的迹象，它是以发现它的博物馆命名的。
That sign is a posture known as “tucking”, in which Yingliang had its head under one arm. It’s what birds do all the time. If they don’t, they will likely be unable to hatch.
这个标志就是一种被称为“抱膝”的姿势，即英良将头夹在一只手臂下。这就是鸟类一直在做的事情。如果不这样做，它们可能无法孵化。
Ma Fion Waisum, a paleontologist at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom, is one of the lead authors of the study. “Some embryos are quite well preserved, but they don’t show this posture. … And some are very fragmentary, so it is difficult to see their posture clearly”, said Ma, reports NBC News.
英国伯明翰大学的古生物学家 Ma Fion Waisum 是该研究的主要作者之一。据 NBC 新闻报道，马说：“有些胚胎保存得相当好，但它们没有表现出这种姿势……而且有些胚胎非常破碎，因此很难清楚地看到它们的姿势。”
The so called “egg thief lizards” (oviraptorosaurs) were a group of dinosaurs with feathers, although they were not birds. They lived during the Cretaceous Period (145-66 M.Y.A) across what is now Asia and North America.
所谓的“偷蛋蜥蜴”（偷蛋龙）是一群长有羽毛的恐龙，虽然它们不是鸟类。他们生活在白垩纪时期（145-66 M.Y.A），横跨现在的亚洲和北美。
This dinosaur species also had hard shells. It is thought that the tucking posture was evolved in order to better break through the harder shell.
这种恐龙也有硬壳。据认为，折叠姿势是为了更好地突破较硬的外壳而进化的。
Yingliang’s near-complete skeleton is 23.5 centimetres from head to tail, reports ScienceAlert. Had the baby been born and not wiped out by the famous asteroid impact, it would have been 2 metres long when fully grown into an adult.
据 ScienceAlert 报道，英良的骨骼近乎完整，从头到尾长 23.5 厘米。如果这个婴儿出生时没有被著名的小行星撞击摧毁，那么当它完全长成成年人时，它的长度将达到 2 米。
But some remain skeptical of the study’s findings. Bi Shundong of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, doesn’t want to put too much faith in a single specimen. “I think more evidence is needed”, he said.
但一些人仍然对这项研究的结果持怀疑态度。宾夕法尼亚州印第安纳大学的毕顺东不想过于相信单个样本。 “我认为需要更多证据”，他说。