化為六月息

-----【譯文初稿】-----

主播：在墨西哥科阿韋拉州(Coahuila)的城市薩爾蒂約(Saltillo)那裡，有一座非常獨特的沙漠博物館(The Desert Museum)。館內不僅展示了沙漠的自然生態，連在沙漠中生活的民族，他們的人文風俗，也通通呈現在遊客面前，吸引了許多人前往參觀。現在讓我們帶領觀眾朋友，前往一探究竟。


配音：這座沙漠博物館在1999年時開幕。在自然主題方面，博物館提供了沙漠動、植物間關連性的說明，並且解釋了這些沙漠生物如何適應缺水的環境。而在人文方面，博物館則展示了一萬二千年前就居住於沙漠地帶的遊牧民族，他們的風俗習慣。

現在遍布著岩石與仙人掌的墨西哥科阿韋拉沙漠，在史前時代曾經被大海所環繞，許多恐龍在這裡繁衍、生存，並且躲避凶猛肉食性霸王龍(Tyrannosaurus Rex)的掠食。因此，在這座博物館裡設有一個獨立的展場，陳列超過25種的恐龍化石模型。

對於這座沙漠博物館設立的目的，館內的古生物學家海克特‧里維拉(Hector Rivera)給了我們最佳的答案，他說：「這座博物館很客觀的解釋了什麼是古生物學、什麼是地質、在沙漠中有些什麼，以及人類如何在沙漠中生存。」【shows 10】

除了這些精采的展示外，遊客到沙漠博物館來，千萬別錯了館內的植物園。這座植物園裡有仙人掌、烏龜與鱷魚，種類高達四百多種，同時還設有一個會模擬下雨的水露臺。


※ 正式新聞稿與影像：「新唐人亞太電視台」、「新唐人電視台」






※ The original article was taken from Reuters Website.  ( 原文取自路透社網站 )




-----【原文對照】-----

INTRO: Desert Museum offers insight into every aspect of desert life.  The Desert Museum in Saltillo, Coahuila, is an interesting visit - a unique museum which puts on display every aspect of desert life, including interaction between plants and animals.


STORY:  The Desert Museum in the city of Saltillo(薩爾蒂約), in the Mexican north-central state of Coahuila(科阿韋拉), is an attractive, visitor-friendly museum which exhibits every aspect of desert life. 

Opened in 1999, it offers a look into interaction between animals and plants and how they adjust to lack of water. It also displays rituals and customs of nomadic groups which inhabited the desert some 12,000 years ago. It shows the way the earth was transformed during the Spanish Conquest and how it was put to use. 

Mexico's Coahuila desert -- now rocky and cactus-filled -- was once covered by ocean where dinosaurs of all kinds thrived along the coast and hid from a giant relative of the fierce predator Tyrannosaurus Rex(霸王龍). In a separate gallery, the museum exhibits more than 25 dinosaur skeleton models. 

Scientists have recently discovered a new species of plant-eating dinosaur in Mexico whose large neck frill and three giant horns helped it attract mates and fight predators on a jungly beach 72 million years ago. 

Mexican palaeontologists recently said that they have found evidence of a new species here related to the Triceratops, known to have the largest head of any animal ever to have walked the earth. 

It will be only the second dinosaur species named in Mexico after scientists in February announced a new duck-billed dinosaur from the same region called Velafrons coahuilensis, which cruised the ancient beaches in large herds. 

Scientists say they expect to find evidence of dozens of other new dinosaur and plant species buried in Coahuila's rich sediment in coming years.

Desert Museum Palaeontologist, Hector Rivera, sums up the purpose of the museum.  "It's objective is to explain what Palaeontology is, what geology is. What can be found in the desert, for example the animals that roamed there and what man had to do to be able to survive here.

The museum holds a duplicate of all animal models it exhibits.  "Once the material is clean, we also have a duplicate department, where we make a replica of the animal or  the fossil so that it can be exhibited in an exhibition in particular or within the museum to make it known to the visiting general public to the museum."

The area has become a focal point with the two mentioned dinosaur discoveries, which are helping open a window into life in the late Cretaceous Period on the southern tip of western North America. 

The continent at the time was sliced in two by a big inland sea stretching from the Arctic Ocean to Mexico's Gulf. The lush, tropical environment provided a perfect habitat for a wide variety of wildlife.

Visitors to the museum may visit a botanical garden with some 400 varieties of cacti, live turtles and crocodiles, plus a water patio where it rains. 

This unique area in Mexico is evidence of sea levels that rose and receded over a period of thousands of years, forcing animals to adapt to new types of environments or pushing some towards extinction.  Clues from tens of millions of years ago can help scientists understand how nature could react to rising sea levels due to climate changes that are melting polar ice caps.