2024/10/14 05:30
◎陳成良
Scientists in South Africa have been stunned to discover that termite mounds that are still inhabited in an arid region of the country are more than 30,000 years old, meaning they are the oldest known active termite hills.
南非科學家驚訝地發現，該國一個乾旱地區仍有白蟻居住的蟻丘，已有超過3萬年歷史，這意味著它們是已知最古老、仍在使用中的白蟻丘。
Some of the mounds near the Buffels River in Namaqualand were estimated by radiocarbon dating to be 34,000 years old, according to the researchers from Stellenbosch University.
斯泰倫博斯大學的研究人員表示，透過放射性碳測年法，他們估計納馬誇蘭布菲爾斯河附近的一些蟻丘已有3萬4000年歷史。
The mounds existed while saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths roamed other parts of the Earth and large swathes of Europe and Asia were covered in ice. They predate some of the earliest cave paintings in Europe.
這些蟻丘的存在，可以追溯到劍齒虎和長毛猛獁象在地球其他地區遊蕩的時期，當時歐洲和亞洲的大片地區被冰雪覆蓋，它們甚至比歐洲一些最早的洞穴壁畫還要古老。
Some fossilized termite mounds have been discovered dating back millions of years. The oldest inhabited mounds before this study were found in Brazil and are around 4,000 years old.
科學家已發現一些可追溯到數百萬年前的白蟻丘化石。在這項研究之前，仍有白蟻居住的最古老蟻丘是在巴西發現的，年齡約為4000年。
新聞辭典
arid：形容詞，乾燥的、缺乏水分的，通常用來形容氣候或地區。例句：Many animals have adapted to survive in arid environments.（許多動物已經適應在乾旱環境中生存。）
roam：動詞，指漫步、流浪。例句：Let your imagination roam free.（讓你的想像力自由倘佯。）
英倫翻譯社轉自 https://features.ltn.com.tw/english/article/paper/1671836
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