第二篇：Back in the mid-1800s, a few scientists working from limited evidence decided there must have been a lostcontinent in the Indian Ocean and they called it Lemuria. On this lost continent, some even thought, there once lived arace of now-extinct humans called Lemurians who had four arms and enormous bodies but nevertheless are theancestors of modern-day humans. As absurd as this all sounds, the idea flourished for a time both in popular cultureand some corners of the scientific community. Of course, modern science has long since discredited the idea ofLemuria altogether. But then, in 2013, geologists discovered evidence of a lost continent precisely where Lemuria wassaid to have existed and the old theories started appearing once again.Lemuria theories first became popular in 1864, when a British lawyer and zoologist named Sclater published apaper titled “The Mammals of Madagascar.” Sclater observed that there were many more species of lemur inMadagascar than there were in either Africa or India, thus claiming that Madagascar was the animal’s originalhomeland. Moreover, he proposed that what had allowed lemurs to first migrate to India and Africa from Madagascarlong ago was a now-lost landmass stretching across the southern Indian Ocean in a triangular shape. This continent of“Lemuria,” Sclater suggested, touched India’s southern point, southern Africa, and western Australia and eventuallysunk to the ocean floor.In 2013 geologists discovered traces of a lost continent in the Indian Ocean. Scientists found fragments of granitein the ocean south of India along a shelf that extends hundreds of miles south of the country towards Mauritius. OnMauritius, geologists found a mineral called zircon. Despite the fact that the island only came into being 2 millionyears ago when it slowly rose out of the Indian Ocean as a small landmass, the zircon they found there dated to 3billion years ago, eons before the island had even formed. What this meant, scientists theorized, was that the zircon hadcome from a much older landmass that long ago sunk into the Indian Ocean. Sclater’s story about Lemuria wastrue—almost. Geologists named the proposed lost continent Mauritia.
46. What is the passage mainly about?
(A) A continent that existed a long time ago.
(B) Some lost animal species.
(C) Different theories about how species migrated to new continents.
(D) How geologists and zoologists differ in their research.