asteroid #2
ペンギンの祖先は恐竜と共に生存していた可能性がでてきました。
Penguin ancestor may have met T. rex
PARIS (AFP-Jiji) — A giant penguin foot-bone discovered in New Zealand shows that the ancestors of everyone’s favorite flightless bird waddled Earth during the age of dinosaurs, researchers reported on Feb. 23.
This was before an asteroid wiped out non-avian dinos some 65.5 million years ago, in other words, super-sized penguins breathed the same air as Triceratops and the flesh-ripping Tyrannosaurus.
The new find, unearthed by an amateur fossil hunter near the Waipara River in New Zealand, does not by itself prove penguin-dinosaur cohabitation.
The eight-centimeter bone dates from about 61 million years ago, well after T. rex and company faded from the scene.
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0003540317
気になった単語は“asteroid”です。LDOCEでは“one of the many small planets that move around the Sun, especially between Mars and Jupiter”と定義されており、「小惑星」を表すことがわかりました。
また『ジーニアス英和辞典』（第五版、大修館書店）では「ヒトデ」、形容詞で「星状の」とありました。
「ヒトデ」といえば“starfish”や“five-finger”、“sea star”となどの他の言い方がたくさん浮かび、“asteroid”との関係性がピンと来ませんが、ギリシャ語の「星」の“aster”が語源となっているそうです。(flyingbird)
