Enter Siberian huskies. Their shaggy, gray and white fur, pointy ears and lupine facial features make them near-doppelgangers of dire wolves.

于是西伯利亚雪橇犬（哈士奇）进入人们的视野，它们凌乱蓬松、灰白相间的皮毛、尖尖的耳朵、以及与狼相像的面部特征，使它们几乎成为了冰原狼的翻版。

I mean, Dire wolves were big, but not that big.

我的意思是，恐狼很大，但没那么大。

Dire wolves were just stockier, with stronger bites and broader faces – a bruiser of a wolf.

可怕的狼只是更结实，咬合力更强，脸更宽——狼的肌肉。

And dire wolves in La Brea also have a lot of broken teeth.

而拉布雷亚的恐狼也有不少断牙的。

But the bones at La Brea can even tell us how dire wolves hunted.

但拉布雷亚的骸骨甚至可以告诉我们恐狼是如何捕猎的。

And even the unusual number of dire wolves at La Brea tells us a lot about their behavior.

甚至拉布雷亚的恐狼数量异常多，也能告诉我们很多关于它们行为的信息。

Among Dire wolves, males and females were about the same size, just like we see in most modern canine species.

在恐狼中， 雄性和雌性的体型大致相同，就像我们在大多数现代犬科动物中看到的一样。

A dire wolf baculum is about 15 cm long, and 1.5 to 2 cm thick.

恐狼杆骨长约 15 厘米，厚 1.5 至 2 厘米。

It's likely that packs of dire wolves hunted bison, camels, horses, and other large Pleistocene animals – though probably not adult mammoths.

成群的恐狼很可能猎杀野牛、骆驼、马和其他大型更新世动物——尽管可能不是成年猛犸象。

And with so many fossils at their disposal, paleontologists have been able to find outan awful lot about Dire wolves.

有了如此多的化石可供使用，古生物学家已经能够找到很多关于恐狼的信息。

And while dire wolves didn't have the jaw strength of their cousins, the borophagines, they could still crack open bones.

虽然恐狼没有它们的表亲食骨狼那样的颚部力量，但它们仍然可以咬开骨头。

So for nearly a million years, Dire wolves were widespread and abundant throughout the Americas, found in grasslands and forests, and at elevations as high as 2200 meters.

因此，在将近一百万年的时间里， 恐狼在整个美洲分布广泛且数量众多，它们生活在草原和森林中， 海拔高达 2200 米。

It remains today as a reminder of that narrow window of often-dire times, when the dire wolves lived and thrived.

它今天仍然是一个提醒， 提醒着那些通常是可怕的时代的狭窄窗口，当可怕的狼生活和繁荣时。

And the most massive of these was Canis dirus, the dire wolf.

其中最大的是恐狼 Canis dirus。

The specimen known today as LACMHC 8291 belonged to the greatest species of wolf that ever lived The dire wolf.

今天被称为 LACMHC 8291 的标本属于有史以来最伟大的狼种——恐狼。

But we know from their sheer numbers that dire wolf packs were probably larger than those of modern wolves.

但我们从庞大的数量得知，恐狼群可能比现代狼群更大。

Without large prey, and without being able to adapt to smaller prey, to compete with smaller canines like coyotes and gray wolves, the dire wolves disappeared.

没有大型猎物， 也无法适应较小的猎物，无法与土狼和灰狼等较小的犬科动物竞争，恐狼就消失了。

And about 400 bacula of Dire wolves have been preserved at La Brea – which has allowed us to study their size and shape for clues into their mating behavior.

拉布雷亚 (La Brea) 保存了大约 400 只恐狼的杆状骨——这使我们能够研究它们的大小和形状，以寻找它们交配行为的线索。

No matter the cause, during that time, many of the biggest herbivores went extinct, leaving the dire wolves with less food.

不管是什么原因， 在那段时间里，许多最大的食草动物都灭绝了，给恐狼留下的食物也越来越少。

The average dire wolf was about 60 to 68 kg, which is 20 kg heavier than the average of their close cousin, the Gray Wolf.

恐狼的平均体重约为 60 至 68 公斤，比它们的近亲灰狼的平均体重重 20 公斤。