As they report in Nature, the critter, which lived around 55m years ago, in the Eocene epoch, seems to be the most primitive relative of tarsiers, mouse-sized primates which now inhabit the islands of South-East Asia.

这种生活在大约五千五百万年前世时期的动物似乎是眼镜猴（这种灵长类动物有老鼠一样的体型，现在居住在东南亚的岛屿上）最原的亲戚。

Though the Cretaceous asteroid cleared the stage, mammals did not really get going until 10m years later, in the Eocene epoch.

管白垩纪时期的小行星灭绝了居统治地位的恐龙，但乳动物却一直到1000万年后的世才真正兴起繁盛起来。

Filling  ecological niches once occupied by dinosaurs, mammals came to dominate the dry grasslands and  forests of the Eocene and beyond, but no species may have been more threatening than humankind.

乳动物填补了曾经被恐龙占据的生态位，并开主宰世及以后的干燥草原和森林，但没有任何物种比人类更具威胁性。

Were the beautiful volute and cone shells of the Eocene epoch, and the gracefully sculptured ammonites of the Secondary period, created that man might ages afterwards admire them in his cabinet?

世美丽的蜗壳和锥壳， 以及第二时期雕刻精美的菊石， 是为了让人们在以后的岁月里在他的橱柜里欣赏它们而创造的吗？

From their early, possibly-tree-climbing origins in the Late Eocene or Early Oligocene, they diversified and expanded with the spread of grasslands in the Miocene, taking advantage of new predatory niches.

从它们起于晚世或早渐世的早期（可能是爬树）开，它们随着中世草原的扩张而多样化和扩张，利用的掠食性生态位。

Or there's the Eocene, more than 34 million years ago, a hothouse time during which the continents drifted into their present configuration.

或者我们可以追溯到3400多万年前的世，那是一个全球变暖的时代， 各大陆漂移至现今的布局。

So given its size, it was able to support many different ecosystems in the Eocene.

所以考虑到它的大小，它能够支持 世许多不同的生态系统。

And a big environmental change was also underway in the last half of the Eocene, thanks to the chemistry of mountain-building.

而在世的后半期，由于造山运动的化学作用，也发生了一场巨大的环境变化。

Other residents of Eocene Antarctica probably came from South America as well.

世南极洲的其他居民可能 也来自南美洲。

Back at the start of the Eocene Epoch, the world was in the clutches of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, and warm, damp forests covered the land from pole to pole.

在世初期，地球正处于古世-世极热事件的控制下，温暖潮湿的森林从北极到南极覆盖了整个陆地。

These were small, nimble carnivores that were adapted to the warm, forested world of the Late Eocene.

这些是适应了晚世温暖森林世界的体型较小、动作敏捷的食肉动物。

Scientists think beavers originally evolved in North America toward the end of the Eocene Epoch, with the earliest known species scampering around Wyoming 35 million years ago.

学家认为海狸最初在北美的世末期进化，已知最早的物种大约在3500万年前在怀俄明州活动。