确认了！科学家首次发现琥珀中封存恐龙标本，见到真恐龙不远了？
2016/12/9 11:05:38 中国科普博览
今年6月，一则“中外科学家首次公布琥珀中的古鸟类标本”的新闻震惊世界，6个月后还是这个团队，向世界宣布了一条更加惊人的消息：
他们在琥珀中发现了有史以来第一件恐龙标本!一段长6厘米、9900万年前、包含羽毛等丰富细节的恐龙尾巴第一次展现在人类面前。”
琥珀中的标本直接来自动物本身，对动物羽毛等细节的保存几乎和生前一模一样，这对科学家开展羽毛形态与进化、现代鸟类研究有着重要的作用。
这就是科学家在琥珀中发现的一段珍贵的恐龙尾巴!
图片来源：科学网
来自9900万年前，美哭了的恐龙羽毛细节呈现。
图片来源：科学网
这件标本意味着什么？恐龙和鸟儿前世有哪些密不可分的关系？科学家如何从化石中采集进化的信息？
我们邀请中国科学院古脊椎动物与古人类研究所最年轻的外籍美女研究员邹晶梅，为我们权威解答化石、古鸟、进化问题!
出品：中国科普博览 SELF格致论道讲坛
▲ Jingmai在SELF讲坛：《Fascinating Early Birds》
(以下为中英演讲全文对照)
大家好!我叫邹晶梅。
Everyone’s life is a unique journey每个人的一生都是一场独特的旅行。
The destination is not all that matters – how we get there is really the best part! Our unique experiences make us special and create important human diversity.目的地并不是最重要的，沿途的风景才最值得我们去享受。旅途中那些特别的体验让我们的生命变得独一无二，让这个世界变得丰富多彩。
I’m a paleontologist [gushengwuxuejia], which means I study the remains of extinct animals that are preserved petrified as fossils. 我是一名古生物学家，我的研究对象是那些已经灭绝的动物所遗留下来的化石。
Most paleontologists grew up loving dinosaurs as kids, but I found my passion a little later in life. Today I would like to tell you about my journey that brought me here to China.
大多数古生物学家从小就对恐龙感兴趣，而我却较晚才找到自己的兴趣所在。今天我将和大家分享我的人生旅程——我是如何来到中国的。
Even if it's a little cliche, I have to say my mother is my biggest role model. She is also a Professor of Geology [dizhixuejia], My mother grew up in HK the daughter of Shandong refuges. She went back to school to do her phd in geology at the age of 40, which having done a phd myself, I know is no small feat when you have four kids! She also did hers in record breaking time!
说起来有点老生常谈，但我不得不说，我的妈妈是我最大的榜样，她也是一名地质学家，在香港长大，但祖籍在山东。在我妈妈40岁的时候，重返校园攻读地质学的博士学位。当我自己攻读博士学位的时候，我意识到这简直是件壮举，尤其是她同时还有4个小孩需要抚养!而她最终也获得了博士学位。
Geology had been her passion when she was young and her choice to follow her heart and do what she loved has always been a major factor in my own life choices. Growing up in LA we only used kuaizi at home and we celebrated Zhongqiujie and Chunjie every year. I grew up fascinated with my Chinese cultural heritage, I found it so beautiful and exotic. In 2001, the year I graduated High School, our whole family came to China. This trip changed my life – I loved it even if then when I tried to buy clothes they would tell me I was too fat – I decided I wanted to live in China one day. And my big brother loved it so much he didn't return to America with the rest of us and stayed for over 12 years!
我妈从小就十分热爱地质学，她总是跟随自己的内心做自己喜欢的事，这对我的人生影响十分深刻。我在洛杉矶长大，但我们在家吃饭都是用筷子，并且每年都会过中秋节和春节。我从小就特别喜欢中国，觉得中国很美丽，具有异国风情。2001年时我高中毕业，我们全家来到中国旅游，这次旅途改变了我的生活。即使当时我想买些衣服，而他们都嘲笑我太胖，我仍然热爱那次旅行。当时我就心想，我总有一天要来中国生活!我的哥哥也很喜欢中国，他后来并没有跟我们一块回美国，而是留在中国待了12年!
Before I could make this dream of living in China come true, I had to attend University, during which I came across a wonderful mentor. He worked really hard to be a good teacher and you could see he genuinely loved what he did and wanted to share his love of paleontology. His name is Don Prothero and I would probably not have become a paleontologist if I hadn’t become infected with his passion.
在我上大学时，遇到了一位特别棒的老师!他工作特别认真，能看出来他是真心热爱古生物学，并且特别喜欢和他人分享这份热爱。他叫做Don Prothero，如果不是他的热情深深地影响了我，我可能现在就不是古生物学家了。
I have to say, the cliché is pretty accurate: choose a career you love and you will never work a day!
俗话说得好，选择一份你热爱的工作，它将变成一种享受。
I study the earliest birds [guniaolei] and how they evolved from dinosaurs over 150 million years ago. Over half of all known Mesozoic bird fossils are from China making it the best place in the world to study their evolution.
我的研究方向是古鸟类的演化，以及它们是如何在1.5亿多年前从恐龙演化而来。世界上目前已知的中生代鸟类化石超过一半发现于中国，所以这里是研究鸟类早期演化最好的地方。
This is a reconstruction of the 120 Ma Jiufotang avifauna, the most diverse Cretaceous fossil avifauna known to science. It is the youngest and most diverse stage in the famous Jehol Biota[reheshengwuqun], the richest vertebrate lagerstatte known in the world, which is found primarily in Liaoning province, but stretches in all directions.
这是生活在1.2亿年前九佛堂组的鸟类复原图，这是白垩纪时分化最为强烈的含鸟类生物群，也是著名的热河生物群——这一世界上发现脊椎动物化石最多的生物群——中最为年轻繁盛的一个阶段。热河生物群主要位于辽宁省，而在临近地区均有产出。
This avifauna includes all known groups of Early Cretaceous birds living side by side, such as:
这一含鸟类生物群包含了目前已知所有早白垩世的共生的鸟类类群，例如：
the primitive Jeholornis [reheniao], which ate seeds and had small teeth. Like non-avian dinosaurs Jeholornis had large clawed hands and this long reptilian tail. However, Jeholornis had an unique tail feather morphology consisting of essentially two different feather tracts and we hypothesize that this very primitive bird was actually a pretty capable flyer. 热河鸟是一种原始的鸟类，它以植物种子为食，牙齿很小。类似于非鸟恐龙，热河鸟的前肢上也具有很大的爪子，以及长长的尾巴。然而热河鸟具有独特的包含两种不同羽束的尾羽形态，于是我们推测这种非常原始的鸟类已经具有了相当的飞行能力。
Confuciusornis [kongziniao] is the most primitive bird with a beak and an abbreviated tail ending in distally fused vertebrae, both features present in all living birds. These birds also had sexually dimorphic plumage like many living birds do. The males had elongate ornamental tail feathers that were not present in the females.
孔子鸟是最早具有角质喙和由末端尾椎愈合而成的短尾综骨的鸟类，而这是所有现生鸟类都具有的特征。孔子鸟的羽毛还和现生大部分鸟类一样，具有性别二态性：雄性具有加长的装饰性尾羽，而雌性则没有。
The largest Early Cretaceous bird was Sapeornis [huiniao]. This bird had small teeth and ate seeds that it digested with gizzard stones similar to living herbivorous birds. It had very long wings, good for flying, and the hand only has two claws, so the hand is getting smaller, more similar to living birds. However, it had no sternum [xionggu], which forms the anchor for the flight muscles in living birds, making it a puzzle how this bird was able to fly, although we know it could!
早白垩世体型最大的鸟类是会鸟，它的牙齿很小，并且和现生植食性鸟类一样保存有能够帮助消化的胃石，我们推测它以种子为食。会鸟的翅膀很长，擅于飞翔，前肢仅有两枚爪子，由此而来的较小的手部也更加接近于现生鸟类。除去前肢的特征，会鸟没有发育出胸骨，而胸骨在现生鸟类中为飞行所需的肌肉提供了必需的附着点，这使得这种鸟类究竟能否有力飞行依然存疑，但我们相信它应该是能够飞行的。
In order to understand just how amazing these Jehol fossils are, I need to show you what the typical bird fossil looks like. Of species known from outside China, more than half are known from a single bone or less!! Birds are among the rarest fossils and this is because birds are generally very small, restricted in their terminal body size by the aerodynamic limitations of flight. In addition, bird bones are very delicate and hollow; this is in order to reduce body weight for flight, but more than that birds actually have extensions of their lungs that fill these hollow spaces in the skeleton allowing them to increase their oxygen intake in order to power their aerial locomotion.
为了让大家知道热河生物群产出的化石有多棒，我来给你们展示一下一般的鸟类化石是什么样子。在中国之外发现的超过一半的化石类群，都只保存了一根甚至不完整的一块骨头!鸟类是保存最为稀少的化石之一，这是由于鸟类受限于飞行的空气动力学需求，通常体型较小。此外，鸟类的骨骼纤细且中空，以此来减轻体重。鸟类的气囊也延伸至了中空的骨骼之中，增大了氧气的摄入量，使得它们能够更加有力地飞行。
So why are there so many amazing bird fossils in northeastern China? To understand this we must first understand a little bit about how a fossil is formed. It relies on the animal dying and being buried before it is scavenged. The Jehol Biota represents an ancient volcanic lake system. Lakes are fed by rivers, which carry sediment as the move, however in lakes the water is still, so as soon as the rivers enter they drop the sediment they are carrying, so that is constantly being deposited on the lake bottom. So a flock of Confuciusornis are flying by and they get caught in volcanic gases and fall poisoned into the lake. They float on the surface for a time but eventually the body sinks to the bottom, where it gets covered slowly but surely by the fine silt carried by the rivers into the lakes. Also important, lake bottoms are anoxic so no scavengers live there to feed off the body so the birds are often preserved absolutely pristine and untouched.
那么为什么在中国东北能够保存下这么多无比精美的鸟类化石呢？想要解答这个疑问，我们首先必须了解化石是如何形成的。要形成化石，必须动物在死亡后迅速被掩埋而不受到大的破坏。热河生物群代表了一种远古的火山湖泊生态系统。河流流入湖泊的同时会带入沉积物，而湖泊中的水环境是静止的，因此河流带来的沉积物将会在湖底连续沉积下来。由此可以想象，当一群孔子鸟飞过天空，却遭遇了火山灰，因而不敌毒气落入了湖中。开始时它们也许会在水面上漂浮一段时间，最终将会沉入湖底，慢慢地被河流带入湖泊中的细粒的淤泥所覆盖。另一个重要因素在于，湖底为缺氧环境，所以没有任何分解者存活于此，鸟儿的尸体也就能够完好地不受扰动地得以保存。
The Jehol lake system was huge and changing its shape during the over 10 million years that it existed from 131 to 120 million years ago. That means there is a lot of rock to search through, and we are still limited to what is easily accessible on the surface of the earth. When we go looking for these fossils we find an area with exposed rock. You break free a big chunk of rock and you turn it on its side, and you hit it with a hammer. This rock will split where there is preserved organic material, because it represents a layer of weakness in the rock.
热河湖泊系统存在于1.31亿年到1.2亿年前，持续了约1000万年的时间。它的面积相当庞大，边界也在不停地发生着变化。因此，它形成了大量的岩层可供探索，而我们目前还仅限于较易开展工作的表层。我们寻找化石的工作流程通常是：首先找到一片具有岩层出露的区域，敲下来一大块岩石，侧面朝上并用锤子进行敲击，它将会沿着具有结构的薄弱层裂开。
You can spend weeks even a month, splitting slabs for 10 hours a day in the hot sun and find nothing, it can be very frustrating. The last time I went slab splitting I found nothing and got pretty discouraged, but my boss Zhou Zhonghe must have only been splitting slabs for an hour or two and “oh, look at this beautiful specimen with feathers I found!” Some paleontologists are just born with a gift! Unfortunately I’m not one of those lucky ones. However, even if we relied on the lucky one’s to find us fossils, there still wouldn't be that many, we only spend a month or two each year in the field [yewai]. However, here in China we have the power of numbers! There are thousands of farmers helping us to collect and this has resulted in the biggest known collections of dinosaurs and birds in the world! Did you know there are only 40-something T. rex specimens in the world and only one of them is nearly complete, and it's the world’s favorite dinosaur and we have been looking for this dinosaur for over 100 years! But Anchiornis [Heshijinniao long] was named in 2009 and I recently wrote a paper in which we did a study based on a single collection of 224 Anchiornis specimens! With large numbers we are able to understand much more about the animal, like how it changed with ontogeny, or whether or not its skeleton was sexually dimorphic.
也许你持续在野外工作了几个星期甚至一个月，每天在烈日下劈上十个小时的岩板，却依然令人沮丧地一无所获。上次我去野外找化石，什么也没找到，我觉得非常气馁，而我的合作导师周忠和院士仅仅劈了一两个小时的岩板，就对我说：“快看快看，我刚找到了一块带着羽毛的好标本!”这让我觉得，有些古生物学家生来就有找化石的天分，而我却不是这样的幸运儿。然而即使我们拥有这样的幸运星，但找到的化石依然十分有限，而且我们每年仅仅会在野外待上一两个月。但在中国，我们具有人数上的优势!成百上千的当地老乡会帮我们采集化石材料，使得中国拥有了世界上最多的恐龙和鸟类化石。大家知道吗？世界上只有40件左右的霸王龙材料，其中只有一件是近乎完整的，而霸王龙是世上最受欢迎的恐龙，人们已经致力于寻找它超过了一百年的时间。赫氏近鸟龙则是一种在2009年才命名的恐龙，而在我最近写的一篇论文中，我们研究了仅一个博物馆馆藏中的224件近鸟龙标本!如此巨大的标本量使得我们能够了解到关于这种动物的更多信息，比如它随着年龄增大会产生什么样的变化，以及它的骨骼上是否具有雌雄的差异。
The other amazing thing about Jehol fossils is that they commonly preserve biological traces that are otherwise extremely rare in the fossil record, such as feathers and stomach contents. We really don’t understand the chemical processes that lead to the preservation of soft tissue traces in these fossils. Each part of the fossil represents a unique chemical microenvironment producing different forms of preservation and its incredibly complex.Each part of the fossil represents a unique chemical microenvironment producing different forms of preservation and its incredibly complex.
热河生物群产出的化石另一个令人惊叹之处在于，它们常常保存有一些其它化石记录极少保存的生物结构，如羽毛和胃容物。我们至今依然无法破解出在化石形成过程中，是怎样的化学作用使得软组织得以保存。这些化石上的各个部位都具有独特的化学微环境，从而形成了不同的极其复杂的保存形式。
One of the most amazing things I have come across is the preservation of the soft tissue of the reproductive organs in several specimens. We stumbled upon these specimens while looking for stomach contents because I’m also very interested in understanding the dietary differences in early birds. Instead we found the remains of ovaries preserved in birds 120 million years old! This is the first time the soft tissue of the reproductive system has ever been preserved, although scientists have tried to understand the reproduction of dinosaurs through their eggs and nests for over a hundred years. Living birds are the only amniotes with only one functional ovary – everyone else has two, including closely related non-avian dinosaurs. These incredible bird fossils, which we published in a paper in Nature, showed that even the earliest birds were modern in this respect, having only one functional ovary. This supports long standing theories that the right ovary was lost in response to the evolution of flight. However, because early birds were more like dinosaurs in that they grew for many years, whereas almost all living birds reach adult size very quickly in less than a year, there are still differences in the ovaries of early birds compared to living birds related to the lower metabolic rate of these taxa. Thus these fossils show us an intermediate condition.
我遇到过最神奇的化石就是在少数几件化石标本上得以保存的鸟类生殖系统。当时我对于早期鸟类的食性也非常感兴趣，所以我们正在这些化石上寻找胃容物的痕迹，却最终找到了1.2亿年前鸟类的卵泡!这是鸟类化石中生殖系统的首次发现，而在这之前的一百多年里，科学家一直在试图通过恐龙的蛋和巢来了解恐龙的繁殖。现生鸟类是唯一具有单侧卵巢的羊膜动物，其它的羊膜动物以及鸟类的近亲非鸟恐龙都具有双侧卵巢。我们发现的鸟类生殖系统直接证据显示出，即使是最古老的鸟类也具有单侧卵巢这样的现代特征，相应的研究成果发表在了《自然》杂志上。这一结果支持了一个由来已久的假说：右侧卵巢的退化与飞行行为的演化息息相关。由于早期鸟类和恐龙一样，可以持续生长很多年，而不像现生鸟类在一年内迅速达到成年个体大小，它们的新城代谢速度较低，其卵巢结构与现生鸟类存在差异，可能代表了卵巢演化的一个过渡阶段。
In my current research I study early birds from as many perspectives as possible. I continue to work on new specimens preserving ovarian traces to study the evolution of reproductive behaviours, and specimens preserving stomach contents to understand the evolution of diet in different groups; I use histology to understand how the early birds grow; and I study preserved feathers. We are even now able to know what color these extinct birds were by studying the feathers under a scanning electron microscope. The color forming organelles, called melanosomes, are preserved, and unique shapes indicate different colors.
我目前的研究工作是从尽可能多的角度来探索早期鸟类，如持续关注保存有卵泡的新化石标本，研究鸟类繁殖行为的起源；研究保存有胃容物的标本，研究不同类群中食性的演化；运用骨组织学手段，研究早期鸟类的生长发育；以及早期鸟类的羽毛。通过扫描电镜，我们已经能够知晓这些灭绝鸟类羽毛的颜色。形成颜色的“黑色素体”具有独特的形状，因此化石中保存的不同形态的黑色素体就能够指示出相应的羽毛颜色。
As a result of this new research I had to contact my artist friend Mr. Rothman and tell him that all these beautiful colors he painted these birds in maybe inaccurate. So far, the only colors we have evidence of at this early time are black, brown, gray and reddish browns, melanosome based colors.Bright colors like greens and yellows are created structurally in forms that are not likely to preserve visually.However, new techniques are constantly becoming developed and one day soon we may even be able to detect structural colors. Right now and especially in China its a really exciting time to study birds.
However, new techniques are constantly becoming developed and one day soon we may even be able to detect structural colors. Right now and especially in China its a really exciting time to study birds.
在得到了这项新的研究成果之后，我不得不去联系我一个艺术家朋友Rothman，告诉他他曾经为那些鸟儿画上的美丽色彩也许都是错的。我们目前对于早期羽毛颜色有据可依的复原色仅有黑色、棕色、灰色和红棕色这些基于黑色素体的颜色。那些鲜丽的颜色比如绿色和黄色则为结构色，几乎无法保存下来。然而随着新技术的不断发展，也许在不久的将来我们就能够观测到结构色的存在。研究鸟类，尤其是在中国研究鸟类，现在是一个令人无比振奋的时代。
I love my career but what about I love about my life is not unique to paleontology, it's Science. There is something really exciting about contributing to the knowledge of mankind. To take an unknown, a question, and to be the first to answer it! And the more you learn the more you become aware there is to learn. I’ve always been surprised to learn how much we don't know – there are interesting questions to answer in every field of study. The more questions you have, the more you want to uncover – and this powerful desire to learn more keeps the world a really exciting place!As a scientist you have the opportunity to travel the world for conferences, collaborations, collect data. I’ve collected fossils in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Outer Mongolia, Africa! I’ve been invited to speak in Chile, Japan, the UK; you meet interesting people from all over; I have collaborative projects with Russians and South Americans; and I just put together a killer grant with a professor from Qinghua to study flight biomechanics. As a scientist there are a million paths you can take… and there is an ever-expanding world full of mysteries to inspire you.I am very passionate about what I do and I hope that you also find your passion. XiexieDajia!
我热爱我的职业，我热爱我的生活，不仅仅是古生物学，而是整个科学。对我来说，能够扩展人类的知识边界是件非常激动人心的事情——发现一个未为人所知的问题，然后成为第一个去解决它的人!我常常讶异于有如此多的东西我们不懂——科学界的每一个领域都有着诸多有趣的问题去解答。而当你想到的问题越多，你就越想去探索，而正是这种对于知识的渴求使得这个世界无比精彩!科学家常常会有很多机会到世界各地参加会议，或合作研究、采集收据。我去新疆、内蒙、蒙古甚至非洲挖过化石标本，曾受邀到智利、日本和英国做过学术报告，期间遇到了很多有趣的人。我和俄罗斯以及南美一些国家有合作项目，最近还和清华大学的一位教授开始合作研究飞行的生物力学信息。作为一名科学家，你有无数条路可以去尝试，而这个生生不息的世界充满着各种各样的秘密，不断地激励着你去探索。我对我所从事的工作充满着热情，我希望你们也能够找到你们的热情所在，谢谢大家!
SELF格致论道是中国科学院计算机网络信息中心和中国科学院科学传播局联合主办的公益讲坛，每月一期。SELF是 Science, Education, Life, Future的缩写，提倡以"格物致知"的精神探讨科技、教育、生活、未来的发展，尝试打破过去纯粹以“知识传播”为主的科普形式，专注于思想的传播，力图从思想的源头上促进公众参与科学的积极性，打造具有中国科学院特色的、融合创新、科学与人文关怀并存的公益演讲品牌。
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