Most people know that land-dwelling dinosaurs were wiped out some 66 million years ago when an asteroid roughly twice the diameter of Paris crashed into Earth.
大多數人都知道，大約有6,600萬年前，一顆直徑約為巴黎兩倍的小行星撞到地球，陸地上的恐龍滅絕了。
If the explosive fireball didn't get them, the plunge in global temperature on a planet with little or no ice -- caused by a blanket of heat-shielding debris in the atmosphere -- did.
即使爆炸產生的火球沒有擊中恐龍，由於撞擊產生的塵埃阻擋陽光，式的這顆原本冰很少或沒有冰的星球氣溫驟降，也會導致恐龍滅絕。
What most people don't know is that more than 100 million years earlier, another climate change cataclysm devastated a different set of dinosaur species, with many going extinct.
大多數人不知道的是，在更早的一億多年前，另一場氣候變化的災難摧毀了另一組恐龍物種，其中許多物種已滅絕。
Except this time, it was global warming rather than global cooling that did them in, with the planet heating up more quickly than the dinos' capacity to adapt.
這次恐龍滅絕的原因是全球變暖而不是全球變冷，地球升溫的速度超過了恐龍的適應能力。
Scientists have found evidence of this traumatic event some 179 million years ago in plant fossils in Argentine Patagonia.
科學家在阿根廷巴塔哥尼亞的植物化石中發現了發生在約1.79億年前的這一慘痛事件的證據。
They also discovered a previously unknown dinosaur.
他們還發現了以前未知的恐龍。
The species, called Bagualia alba, is in the family of massive, long-necked sauropods, the largest animals to walk the Earth.
該物種被命名為Bagualia alba（Bagualia是發現化石的山谷名，alba意為黎明，表示她們生活在地球早期時候），屬於大型，長頸蜥腳下目，它們是地球的最大動物。
Before the global warming event, sauropods were only one branch of the Sauropodomorpha lineage.
在全球變暖事件發生之前，蜥腳下目只是蜥腳形亞目譜系的一個分支。
Other dinosaurs in the same group were smaller and lightly built, with some no bigger than a goat, according to a study published Wednesday in the Royal Society.
根據皇家學會上周三發表的一項研究，同一系列中的其他恐龍體型更小，有些甚至不如一隻山羊大。
But a series of volcanic eruptions over several million years released huge amounts of CO2 and methane in the atmosphere, warming the planet and transforming the vegetation dinosaurs fed on.
但是幾百萬年來的一系列火山噴發在大氣中釋放出大量的二氧化碳和甲烷，使地球變暖並改變了恐龍賴以生存的植被。
The climate went from a temperate, warm and humid with a diverse lush vegetation to a strongly seasonal, hot-and-dry regime.
氣候從溫暖、溼潤並有大量植被，轉變為季節性的乾旱高溫氣候。
Smaller Sauropodomorpha dinosaurs were unable to cope with the change, but larger sauropods –- like the Bagualia alba -- thrived.
較小的蜥腳形亞目恐龍無法適應這種變化，但是較大的蜥腳類恐龍（如Bagualia alba）種群則蓬勃發展。
"Sauropods are massive, four-legged animals with long necks," which meant they could reach the tops of trees, paleontologist and lead author Diego Pol told AFP.
古生物學家和主要作者迭戈·波爾告訴法新社，「蜥腳類動物是長頸的大型四足動物，」這意味著它們可以夠到樹頂。
"Their very robust mandibles and spoon-shaped teeth were adapted to feed on all kinds of plants such as conifer trees."
他們的下頜骨和湯匙形狀的牙齒非常健壯，適合以針葉樹等各種植物為食。
Conifers in the early Jurassic had tough and leathery leaves that would be a challenge for any herbivore.
侏羅紀早期的針葉樹的葉子堅硬而呈皮革狀，這對任何食草動物都是一個挑戰。
But that gave B. alba an advantage over other Sauropodomorpha dinosaurs, said Pol, head of the science department at the Egidio Feruglio palaeontology museum in Patagonia.
巴塔哥尼亞Egidio Feruglio古生物學博物館科學部門負責人Pol表示，這種情況下，Bagualia alba比其他蜥腳形亞目恐龍更有優勢。
Sauropods' new diet saw them expanded in size from 10 meters to 40 meters in length, as large digestion chambers were needed to cope.
蜥腳類恐龍的進食習慣使它們的身體從10米長高到40米，同時需要大型消化腺來應對。
They became the dominant group of herbivores and eventually the largest animals to ever walk the Earth.
它們成為草食動物的主要群體，並最終成為有史以來地球行走的最大動物。