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Q. Why does the author mentions that "few naturalists of the time accepted the idea of major groups of extinct animals"?
The extinct flying reptiles called pterosaurs were the second group of animals (after insects) to evolve flight. Most pterosaurs were about the size of modern seagulls. A few were as small as sparrows, but some of the later species were the largest flying animals that have ever lived. In 1817, Theodore Von Soemmerring published the first description of a pterosaur fossil, and thinking that it was that of an unusual bat species, he drew his reconstruction with a very batlike posture and wing. His early reconstruction of a pterosaur has haunted the public and scientific perception of pterosaurs ever since Soemmerring's reconstruction is understandable given that he was the first to try to describe a pterosaur, that few naturalists of the time accepted the idea of major groups of extinct animals, and that both pterosaurs‘ and bats‘ wings consist of a membrane supported by enormously elongated finger bones. Soemmerring showed his pterosaur with the laterally directed legs and reoriented feet of bats and with the wing membrane stretching from the arm and finger along the sides of the body and legs all the way to the ankle. The reconstruction also included a membrane stretching between the legs, similar to that in bats. Even though other scientists developed less batlike descriptions of pterosaurs in the late 1800s, the popular literature, and even some scientific literature, continued to describe pterosaurs as batlike into the 1980s.
> 여기서 정답은 To help explain why it was reason able for Soemmerring to think that pterosaurs were related to today's bats라고 하는데... 제가 해석을 잘 못해서 그런지 이게 어떻게 정답이 되는지 모르겠습니다...! 그리고 이 정답 문장이 조금 이상한데 문법적으로 잘 이해가 되지 않습니다 ㅠㅠ
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