世界最長恐龍糞便化石 拍價1萬美元大綱
A fossilised piece of million-year-old animal dung more than a metre in length is set to go on auction tomorrow in the US.
明天，一塊長度超過1米的動物糞便化石將在美國拍賣。這塊化石已經有上百萬年曆史。It’s not clear what beast produced the sample (technically known as a coprolite) but it’s expected that it will fetch between $8,000 and $10,000 when it goes under the hammer.
目前尚不清楚這塊化石（專業術語叫糞化石）是哪種動物留下的。但預計它的拍出價在8千至1萬美元之間。The clay-coloured sample is thought to date back to the Oligocence and Minocene Epochs, making it between 5.3 and 33.9 million years old.
這塊粘土色的標本被認爲來自漸新世或中新世，也就是530萬到3390萬年前。
“This truly spectacular specimen is possibly the longest example of coprolite - fossilised dinosaur feces - ever to be offered at auction,” reads the auction description from I.M. Chait. “It boasts a wonderfully even, pale brown-yellow colouring and terrifically detailed texture to the heavily botryoidal surface across the whole of its immense length.”
“這塊吸引眼球的標本可能是有史以來被拍賣的最長的一塊糞化石（化石化的恐龍糞便），”t拍賣行的拍賣品描述中寫道，“這塊極長的葡萄狀化石擁有淺棕黃色的外表和非常細緻的紋理。”For those of you who have never had to describe fossilized, possibly-dinosaur poo, ‘botryoidal’ means globular and comes from the Greek word ‘botrus’ – meaning a ‘bunch of grapes’.
如果你從未描述過這塊可能是恐龍糞便的化石，“botryoidal”這個詞的意思是球形的。它來自希臘語“botrus”，意思是一串葡萄。The specimen will be “presented in four sections, each with a heavy black marble custom base, an eye-watering 40-inches in length overall.”
這塊標本將被“分成四份展出，每份都會放在定製的黑色大理石底座上，總長40英寸，令人矚目。”Despite their innate weirdness, coprolites and paleofeces (fossilized human faeces) are rich sources of information for archaeologists and were also invaluable at the time of their creation: dinosaur droppings provided the fertilizer necessary to keep those prehistoric jungles looking green and lush.
除了本身的奇異，糞化石和遠古人類糞便化石能夠爲考古學家提供大量信息。此外，它們在遠古時代也是無價之寶：恐龍糞是讓史前叢林茂密生長的肥料。Coprolites have been used for everything from dating the timeline of certain species to proving the existence of cannibalism in ancient human cultures (thanks to the discovery of human proteins in unearthed paleofeces).
從確定物種的生存年代到發現古人類的食人習俗（感謝出土的遠古人類糞便化石中發現的人類蛋白質），糞化石的用處非常廣泛。The 40-inch sample seen above will actually go on sale alongside five other stool-shaped specimens that to have come from a Miocene-era turtle, each of which is estimated to sell for $4,000 to $6,000.
上述的40英寸標本會和其它5塊中新世龜的糞便狀標本一起出售，這5塊標本的售價爲每塊4千至6千美元。
