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