WEBVTT

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Welcome to Spotlight. I'm Colin Lowva
and I'm Alice Irasari. Spotlight uses a

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special English method of broadcasting. It
is easier for people to understand no matter

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where in the world they live.
In two thousand and eight, doctor Heinrich

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Frank discovered something strange. He was
driving home from his work at the Federal

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University of Rio Grande d soult.
He noticed a hole in a building area

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he drove by. He was a
geology, a person who studies the earth

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and its minerals and structures. The
tunnel interested him. It looked different from

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other tunnels in the area, so
several days later he went to investigate inside.

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The tunnel was different from anything he
had seen before. Most caves form

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when water flows underground. They do
not go in a straight line, but

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this tunnel did. It went back
into the hill for fifteen meters, and

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strangest of all, there were marks
on the walls. They looked like claw

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marks made by a huge animal.
When Frank left the cave, he did

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not know what he had found.
Soon he understood that he had discovered his

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first paleo burrow. These ancient tunnels
were made by prehistoric animals over ten thousand

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years ago. Today's spotlight is on
paleo burrows. We know about most ancient

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animals through their fossils. The study
of former life on the earth as preserved

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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 palaeontology. 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 animals' social relationships. Each type
of paleo burrow would have been dug by

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a different kind of animal. All
of these burrow tunnels are very large.

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They are dug out of solid rock. It would take many animals working together

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a long time to dig a burrow. One paleo burrow found in the Amazon

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is over one hundred meters long and
two meters high. Mina's Gireise is a

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state in Brazil. There, scientists
have found a paleo burrow with six tunnels

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forty meters long. This burrow has
a large cave in the middle. The

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cave is four meters tall and ten
meters across. Scientists think many animals digging

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for many generations made it so what
creatures might dig a tunnel year after year

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for their burrow. There are two
possibilities, and both creatures may be responsible

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for different kinds of paleo burrows.
The first possibility is the leestodon. The

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leestodon was a huge ground sloth.
These sloths were different from the slow moving

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tree climbers we know today. Picture
a sloth that looks like a hamster,

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but with the size of an elephant. The leestodon was two meters tall and

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four and a half meters long.
It had huge, powerful claws on its

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hands that it used for digging plants. The leestodon probably dug the taller,

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wider burrows. Another possible animal is
the ancient armadillo. Like today's armadillos,

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they had protective shells on their backs
and heads, but unlike today's armadillos,

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they could grow unbelievably large. The
biggest of these armadillos is called the dough

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Diicorus. The dough Diicorus was a
meter and a half tall and three and

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a half meters long. It may
have weighed fifteen hundred kilograms. It also

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had a large spiked club on the
end of its tail. It was the

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size of a small car. Scientists
believe these animals built the shorter burrows,

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but they may have made longer,
more complex ones. Also. One great

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mystery about paleo burrows is where these
are found. Giant ground sloths and ancient

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armadillos lived throughout North and South America, but scientists have only found paleo boroughs

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in South America. Most are in
Brazil, in the states of Santa Catarina

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and Rio Grande do Soules. These
findings may be because most scientists studying paleo

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boroughs live in Brazil, but these
scientists also search in other places. But

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Brazil seems to have the most of
these prehistoric boroughs. We just do not

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know why. Greg MacDonald is a
scientist who studies ancient ground sloths. He

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is from North America. He spoke
to Discover magazine about North America's lack of

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paleo burrows. The fact that we
do not have them here could be that

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we have not found them, or
it may be that we had them up

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here but we did not have the
right kind of soil to let them survive

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for a long time. Another mysterious
thing about paleo burrows is the size.

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Huge animals made these tunnels, but
most scientists believe the tunnel's size is greater

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than necessary. Scientists use the example
of the giant armadillo. The giant armadillo

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is the largest kind of armadillo alone. Today they can grow up to a

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meter long. Large ones can weigh
almost fifty kilograms. Like ancient armadillos,

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Today's giant armadillos make tunnels. These
modern tunnels are usually forty centimeters around.

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Modern armadillo tunnels can be about four
and a half meters long, but paleo

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burrows have been found more than one
hundred meters long. Of course, ancient

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animals that dug these tunnels were bigger
than a modern armadillo, but these paleo

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burrows are larger than a single ancient
armadillo or sloth would need. Why were

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many of these paleo burrows so long. The creatures that built paleo burrows may

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have had very complex behaviors. They
may have worked together to create huge structures.

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They may have used these burrows to
shelter from the cold, or they

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may have hidden there from other animals. Scientists today are imagining the lives of

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these ancient animals. Regrettably, paleo
burrows are in danger. The study of

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these ancient tunnels is new, the
money for research is limited, few scientists

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have the chance to study them.
Paleo burrows are also in danger from modern

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technology. Often people find these during
building projects. By the time they know

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they are digging into a paleo borrow, parts are already destroyed. People build

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highways and houses on these ancient boroughs, making it difficult to study what is

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below. Still, scientists hope more
people will soon understand how important paleo boroughs

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are. They are trying to raise
understanding. One day we may be able

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to learn more about the unbelievable creatures
that built these boroughs. Do you remember

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doctor Heinrich Frank From the beginning of
the program. Since his first discovery,

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he has become an expert in paleo
boroughs. He and his team have found

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almost two thousand of paleo boroughs and
he supports the idea of studying these mysterious

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structures. He spoke to the world
about why these are so important. You

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can remake the home of a prehistoric
animal. This research does not exist in

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any kind of ancient animal studies.
You have the dinosaurs, you have their

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bones, but you do not know
where they lived. But we find the

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homes of ancient animals. Our group
is working in a new area. Do

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you like ancient animals? What is
your favorite dinosaur or ancient mammal? Why?

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We want to hear your thoughts.
You can leave a comment on our

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website or email us at Radio at
Radio English dot net. You can also

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comment on Facebook at Facebook dot com
slash Spotlight Radio. The writer of this

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program was Dan Christman. The producer
was mitchyo Osaki. The voices you heard

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were from the United Kingdom and the
United States. All quotes were adapted for

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this program and voiced by Spotlight.
You can listen to this program again and

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read it on the internet at www
dot Spotlight English dot com. This program

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is called Brazil's Most Mysterious tunnels.
We hope you can join us again for

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the next Spotlight program. Goodbye,