专题04 阅读理解之说明文02-备战2022-2023学年高二年级英语上学期期末考试真题汇编（新高考专用）（原卷版）

专题04 阅读理解之说明文02 【精选真题01】 （2022·山东聊城高二期末） The fossil (化石)discovery in Victoria now shows that monk seals were widespread in Australasia in the past. “Monk seals are one of the rarest and most endangered marine mammals (海洋哺乳动物)alive today, but this wasn’t always the case,” according to lead study author Dr. James Rule from Monash University. “Our paper shows that the very endangered monk seals once called Australia home about five million years ago(specifically in Victoria),” he said. The discovery was made by studying two fossils again from Melbourne Museum’s collections the identity of which had been a mystery for 40 years. “When we studied them, they turned out to be the oldest evidence of monk seals,” Dr. Rule said. “These fossils, along with the extinct New Zealand species that was discovered last year, double the known diversity of the monk seals,” he said. According to Dr. Rule, monk seals disappeared in Australasia three million years ago, and they only lived in the tropics (热