These dragons from deep time are incredible creatures. They're bizzarre, they're beautiful, and there's very little we know about them.
Ovi zmajevi iz davnih vremena su predivna stvorenja. Bizarni su, predivni su i o njima znamo veoma malo toga.
These thoughts were going through my head when I looked at the pages of my first dinosaur book. I was about five years old at the time, and I decided there and then that I would become a paleontologist. Paleontology allowed me to combine my love for animals with my desire to travel to far-flung corners of the world.
Ove misli prolazile su mi kroz glavu kada sam gledao po stranicama moje prve knjige o dinosaurusima. Tada sam imao oko pet godina i tada sam odlučio da ću postati paleontolog. Paleontologija mi je omogućila da kombinujem svoju ljubav prema životinjama
And now, a few years later, I've led several expeditions to the ultimate far-flung corner on this planet, the Sahara. I've worked in the Sahara because I've been on a quest to uncover new remains of a bizarre, giant predatory dinosaur called Spinosaurus.
sa željom da putujem u udaljene krajeve sveta. Sada, nekoliko godina kasnije, vodio sam nekoliko ekspedicija do najudaljenijeg od udaljenih krajeva na ovoj planeti, Sahare. Radio sam u Sahari jer sam bio u potrazi da otkrijem nove ostatke bizarnog, ogromnog dinosaurusa,
A few bones of this animal have been found in the deserts of Egypt and were described about 100 years ago by a German paleontologist. Unfortunately, all his Spinosaurus bones were destroyed in World War II. So all we're left with are just a few drawings and notes.
grabljivice zvane spinosaurus. Pronađeno je nekoliko kostiju ove životinje u pustinjama Egipta i pre oko 100 godina ih je opisao nemački paleontolog. Nažalost, sve njegove kosti spinosaurusa uništene su u Drugom svetskom ratu.
From these drawings, we know that this creature, which lived about 100 million years ago, was very big, it had tall spines on its back, forming a magnificent sail, and it had long, slender jaws, a bit like a crocodile, with conical teeth, that may have been used to catch slippery prey, like fish. But that was pretty much all we knew about this animal for the next 100 years.
Sve što nam je ostalo je nekoliko crteža i beleški. Iz ovih crteža, znamo da je ovo stvorenje, koje je živelo pre oko 100 miliona godina, bilo veoma veliko, imalo je velike bodlje na leđima koje su činile predivno jedro, vilica mu je bila duga i uska, pomalo nalik na krokodila, sa zubima konusnog oblika kojim je možda lovio klizav plen, poput ribe. Ali to je bilo sve što smo znali o ovoj životinji narednih 100 godina.
My fieldwork took me to the border region between Morocco and Algeria, a place called the Kem Kem. It's a difficult place to work in. You have to deal with sandstorms and snakes and scorpions, and it's very difficult to find good fossils there. But our hard work paid off. We discovered many incredible specimens. There's the largest dinosaur bone that had ever been found in this part of the Sahara. We found remains of giant predatory dinosaurs, medium-sized predatory dinosaurs, and seven or eight different kinds of crocodile-like hunters.
Moj terenski rad odveo me je do graničnog predela između Maroka i Alžira, do mesta zvanog Kem Kem. To je teško mesto za rad. Imate posla sa peščanim olujama i zmijama i škorpijama i tamo je veoma teško naći dobre fosile. Ali naš težak rad se isplatio. Otkrili smo mnogo sjajnih primeraka. Tu je najveća kost dinosaurusa koja je ikada pronađena u ovom delu Sahare. Pronašli smo ostatke ogromnih dinosaurusa grabljivica, dinosaurusa grabljivica srednje veličine i sedam ili osam razlčitih vrsta grabljivica nalik krokodilima.
These fossils were deposited in a river system. The river system was also home to a giant, car-sized coelacanth, a monster sawfish, and the skies over the river system were filled with pterosaurs, flying reptiles. It was a pretty dangerous place, not the kind of place where you'd want to travel to if you had a time machine.
Ovi fosili su bili smešteni u rečnom sistemu. Rečni sistem takođe je bio dom ogromnog celakanta veličine automobila, ogromne testerače a nebo iznad rečnog sistema bilo je prepuno pterosaurusa, letećih reptila. Bilo je to prilično opasno mesto, tamo ne biste želeli da otputujete kada biste imali vremeplov.
So we're finding all these incredible fossils of animals that lived alongside Spinosaurus, but Spinosaurus itself proved to be very elusive. We were just finding bits and pieces and I was hoping that we'd find a partial skeleton at some point.
Pronalazili smo sve ove neverovatne fosile životinja koji su živeli u isto vreme sa spinosaurusom, ali sam spinosaurus se ispostavio kao težak za uhvatiti. Nalazili smo samo deliće i nadao sam se da ćemo u nekom trenutku pronaći delimičan skelet.
Finally, very recently, we were able to track down a dig site where a local fossil hunter found several bones of Spinosaurus. We returned to the site, we collected more bones. And so after 100 years we finally had another partial skeleton of this bizarre creature. And we were able to reconstruct it.
Konačno, nedavno smo uspeli da pronađemo mesto za kopanje gde je lokalni lovac na fosile pronašao nekoliko kostiju spinosaurusa. Vratili smo se na lokaciju, skupili smo još kostiju. Tako smo nakon 100 godina konačno imali delimični skelet ovog bizarnog stvorenja. I mogli smo da ga rekonstruišemo.
We now know that Spinosaurus had a head a little bit like a crocodile, very different from other predatory dinosaurs, very different from the T. rex. But the really interesting information came from the rest of the skeleton. We had long spines, the spines forming the big sail. We had leg bones, we had skull bones, we had paddle-shaped feet, wide feet -- again, very unusual, no other dinosaur has feet like this -- and we think they may have been used to walk on soft sediment, or maybe for paddling in the water. We also looked at the fine microstructure of the bone, the inside structure of Spinosaurus bones, and it turns out that they're very dense and compact. Again, this is something we see in animals that spend a lot of time in the water, it's useful for buoyancy control in the water.
Sada znamo da je spinosaurus imao glavu pomalo nalik na krokodila, veoma drugačiju od drugih dinosaurusa grabljivica, drugačiju od tiranosaurusa reksa. Ali zaista zanimljive informacije dobili smo od ostatka skeleta. Imali smo dugačke bodlje koje su formirale veliko jedro. Imali smo kosti nogu, kosti lobanje, široka stopala u obliku vesala - opet, veoma neobično, nijedan drugi dinosaurus nema ovakva stopala i mislimo da su verovatno bili naviknuti na hodanje po mekoj podlozi ili veslanje po vodi. Takođe smo posmatrali i finu mikrostrukturu kosti, unutrašnju strukturu kostiju spinosaurusa i ispostavlja se da su veoma guste i kompaktne. Opet, ovo je nešto što vidimo kod životinja koje dosta vremena provode u vodi,
We C.T.-scanned all of our bones and built a digital Spinosaurus skeleton. And when we looked at the digital skeleton, we realized that yes, this was a dinosaur unlike any other. It's bigger than a T. rex, and yes, the head has "fish-eating" written all over it, but really the entire skeleton has "water-loving" written all over it -- dense bone, paddle-like feet, and the hind limbs are reduced in size, and again, this is something we see in animals that spend a substantial amount of time in the water.
korisno je za kontrolu plovnosti u vodi. Sve kosti smo stavili pod rendgen i napravili digitalni skelet spinosaurusa. I kada smo pogledali digitalni skelet, shvatili smo da je ovo zaista jedinstven dinosaurus. Veći je od tiranosaurusa reksa, i sve u vezi sa njim naglašava da jede ribu, ali zapravo ceo skelet nam je govorio da on voli vodu - guste kosti, stopala nalik veslima i smanjeni zadnji udovi i opet, ovo je nešto što viđamo kod životinja koje provode značajne količine vremena u vodi.
So, as we fleshed out our Spinosaurus -- I'm looking at muscle attachments and wrapping our dinosaur in skin -- we realize that we're dealing with a river monster, a predatory dinosaur, bigger than T. rex, the ruler of this ancient river of giants, feeding on the many aquatic animals I showed you earlier on.
Dok smo na našeg spinosaurusa nabacivali meso - gledam vezivanje mišića i obmotavanje našeg dinosaurusa kožom - shvatamo da imamo posla sa rečnim čudovištem, dinosaurusom grabljivicom, koji je veći od tiranosaurusa reksa, vladara ove prastare reke džinova, koji se hranio mnogim vodenim životinjama koje sam vam ranije pokazao.
So that's really what makes this an incredible discovery. It's a dinosaur like no other. And some people told me, "Wow, this is a once-in-a-lifetime discovery. There are not many things left to discover in the world." Well, I think nothing could be further from the truth. I think the Sahara's still full of treasures, and when people tell me there are no places left to explore, I like to quote a famous dinosaur hunter, Roy Chapman Andrews, and he said, "Always, there has been an adventure just around the corner -- and the world is still full of corners." That was true many decades ago when Roy Chapman Andrews wrote these lines. And it is still true today.
To je ono što ovo otkriće čini neverovatnim. To je dinosaurus nalik nijednom drugom. Neki ljudi su mi rekli: "Opa, ovo je otkriće života. Na svetu nije ostalo još mnogo toga da se otkrije." Mislim da je istina daleko od toga. Mislim da je Sahara još prepuna blaga i kada mi ljudi kažu da nema više mesta za istraživanje, volim da citiram čuvenog lovca na dinosauruse, Roja Čepmena Endrusa, a on je rekao: "Avantura je uvek bila tik iza ćoška, a svet je još prepun ćoškova". To je bilo istina pre mnogo decenija kada je Roj Čepmen Endrus napisao ove reči.
Thank you.
Istina je i danas.
(Applause)
Hvala vam.