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Brazil's Most Mysterious Tunnels (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

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  Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Colin Lauva and I'm Alice Irasari. Spotlight uses
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  a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
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  matter where in the world they live. In two thousand and eight, doctor
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  Heinrich Frank discovered something strange. He was driving home from his work at the
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  Federal University of Rio Grande do Souls. He noticed a hole in a building
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  area he drove by. He was a geologist, a person who studies the
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  earth and its minerals and structures. The tunnel interested him. It looked different
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  from other tunnels in the area, so several days later he went to investigate
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  inside. The tunnel was different from anything he had seen before. Most caves
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  form when water flows underground. They do not go in a straight line,
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  but this tunnel did. It went back into the hill for fifteen meters,
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  and strangest of all, there were marks on the walls. They looked like
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  claw marks made by a huge animal. When Frank left the cave, he
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  did not know what he had found. Soon he understood that he had discovered
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  his first paleo burrow. These ancient tunnels were made by prehistoric animals over ten
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  thousand years ago. Today's spotlight is on paleo burrows. We know about most
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  ancient animals through their fossils. The study of former life on the earth as
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  preserved in fossils is called paleontology. Usually fossils are the bones of an ancient
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  animal. These bones have turned to stone over time. Sometimes scientists are able
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  to find other remains. Rarely, scientists may find animal droppings and even footprints.
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  But these paleo burrows, or ancient burrows, are new in the history
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  of the paleontology. These were an animal's home. A burrow is a hole
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  an animal digs in the ground as a living space or shelter. Through these
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  burrows, scientists can do more than picturing how the animals looked. They can
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  study how an animal may have lived and worked. They can know more about
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  the animal's social relationships. Each type of paleoborough would have been dug by a
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  different kind of animal. All of these burrow tunnels are very large. They
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  are dug out of salad rock. It would take many animals working together a
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  long time to dig a burrow. One paleo burrow found in the Amazon is
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  over one hundred meters long and two meters high. Mina's Jureis is a state
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  in Brazil. There, scientists have found a paleo burrow with six tunnels forty
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  meters long. This burrow has a large cave in the middle. The cave
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  is four meters tall and ten meters across. Scientists think many animals digging for
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  many generations made it so what creatures might dig a tan year after year for
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  their burrow. There are two possibilities, and both creatures may be responsible for
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  different kinds of paleo burrows. The first possibility is the lstodon. The Lstodon
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  was a huge ground sloth. These sloths were different from the slow moving tree
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  climbers we know today. Picture a sloth that looks like a hamster, but
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  with the size of an elephant. The leestodon was two meters tall and four
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  and a half meters long. It had huge, powerful claws on its hands
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  that it used for digging plants. The Lstodon probably dug the taller, wider
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  burrows. Another possible animal is the ancient armadillo. Like today's armadillos, they
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  had protective shells on their backs and heads, but on like today's armadillos,
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  they could grow unbelievably large. The biggest of these armadillos is called the Dodicorus.
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  The Doughdicarus was a meter and a half tall and three and a half
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  meters long. It may have weighed fifteen hundred kilograms. It also had a
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  large spiked club on the end of its tail. It was the size of
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  a small car. Scientists believe these animals built the shorter burrows, but they
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  may have made longer, more complex ones. Also. One great mystery about
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  paleo burros is where these are found. Giant ground slots and ancient armadillos lived
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  throughout North and South America, but scientists have only found paleo burrows in South
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  America. Most are in Brazil, in the states of Santa Catarina and Rio
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  Grande do Sous. These findings may be because most scientists studying paleo boros live
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  in Brazil, but these scientists also search in other places. But Brazil seems
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  to have the most of these prehistoric burroughs. We just do not know why.
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  Greg MacDonald is a scientist who studies ancient ground sloths. He is from
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  North America. He spoke to discover magazine about North America's lack of paleo burroughs.
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  The fact that we do not have them here could be that we have
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  not found them, or it may be that we had them up here,
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  but we did not have the right kind of soil that let them survive for
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  a long time. Another mysterious thing about paleo burrows is the size. Huge
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  animals made these tunnels, but most scientists believe the tunnel's sides is greater than
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  necessary. Scientists use the example of the giant arms. The giant armadillo is
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  the largest kind of armadillo alive today. They can grow up to a meter
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  long. Large ones can weigh almost fifty kilograms. Like ancient armadillos, today's
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  giant armadillos make tunnels. These modern tunnels are usually forty centimeters around. Modern
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  armadillo tunnels can be about four and a half meters long, but paleo burrows
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  have been found more than one hundred meters long. Of course, ancient animals
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  that dug these tunnels were bigger than a modern armadillo, but these paleo burrows
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  are larger than a single ancient armadillo or sloth would need. Why were many
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  of these paleo burrows so large. The creatures that built paleo burrows may have
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  had very complex behaviours. They may have worked together to create huge structures.
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  They may have used these boro to shelter from the cold, or they may
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  have hidden there from other animals. Scientists today are imagining the lives of these
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  ancient animals. Regrettably, paleo boroughs are in danger. The study of these
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  ancient tunnels is new, the money for research is limited, few scientists have
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  the chance to study them. Paleo boroughs are also in danger from modern technology.
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  Often people find these during building projects. By the time they know they
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  are digging into a paleo borough, parts are already destroyed. People build highways
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  and houses on these ancient boroughs, making it difficult to study what is below.
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  Still, scientists hope more people will soon understand how important paleo burroughs are.
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  Are trying to raise understanding. One day we may be able to learn
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  more about the unbelievable creatures that built these burrows. Do you remember doctor Heinrich
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  Frank From the beginning of the program. Since his first discovery, he has
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  become an expert in paleo boroughs. He and his team have found almost two
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  thousand of paleo boroughs and he supports the idea of studying these mysterious structures.
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  He spoke to the world about why these are so important. You can remake
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  the home of a prehistoric animal. This research does not exist in any kind
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  of ancient animal studies. You have the dinosaurs, you have their bones,
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  but you do not know where they lived. But we find the homes of
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  ancient animals. Our group is working in a new area. Do you like
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  ancient animals? What is your favorite dinosaur or ancient mammal? Why? We
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  want to hear your thoughts. You can leave a comment on our website or
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  email us at Radio at Radio English dot net. You can also comment on
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  Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer of this program was
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  Dan Christman. The producer was Michio Osaki. The voices you heard were from
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  the United Kingdom and the United States. All quotes were adapted for this program
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  and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read it
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  on the internet at www dot Spotlight English dot com. This program is called
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  Brazil's Most Mysterious Tunnels. We hope you can join us again for the next
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  Spotlight program. Goodbye, M.