The story of millions of years part 10


LATE CRETACEOUS

North America….. 76 million years ago

In the fierce midday heat the ground shimmered, the very air rippling with false promise; the nesting grounds reflected in the sky.

Nothing moved that didn’t need to move, the air as still as the grey fallen trees piled along the river bank and scattered across the stream; the last thin ribbon of silver water stretched to breaking between the far-off hills and the distant sea.

It was a lifeline to which life still clung; a thread of hope meandering its uncertain way through a valley of its own making, log-strewn and parched, waiting for the autumn rains.

On higher ground, the maiasaurs nested, good mothers sitting mute on their rotting piles; sheltering eggs from the impossible heat, battling the sun as they battled everything else in this harsh land, each and every day a challenge to be overcome.

And not all of them had made it, the mummified husks of the weak and weary, the old and infected, gathering dust between the mounds.

Nothing moved save the shimmering heat, the maiasaurs closed-eyed and immobile, waiting for the first evening breeze to touch their skin.

It was a time for silence; the jostling and rubbing saved for later in the day, the time when social interactions could be re-forged.

Nothing moved, save one slim foot, a graceful grey limb lifted and held, waiting to be placed with care, down it came, slowly, the narrow-clawed digits separating on the hot, dry ground. So as one foot descended another lifted, the daring hunter entering carefully the giants’ land.

Between the nests it stepped, weaving a course around the slumbering queens; each of the immobile creatures outweighing it several thousand times.

A killer it was, but a killer of the young, its beak of needle-sharp teeth held low, its eyes as black as the deepest shadow reflecting all it saw.

The sun beat down upon it, inky feathers absorbing heat. A patient killer cloaked in a mantle of night, an infant stalker, its dagger-like head moving purposefully from side to side.

Closed eyes opened, conscious of its passing; an aggravation but not a threat, not to the overheated adults suffering upon their nests.

Troodon could pass while the day was hot; while the effort to send it fleeing was like battling flies, the small creatures an ever-present irritation in the mothers’ lives.

The hunter stalked, navigating the predictable valleys between the nests; each a chasm a tail-length wide. It had a job to do and dimly the Maiasaura knew it, tolerant of the opportunistic killer welcome to scavenge the nesting ground.

Popular posts from this blog

The story of millions of years part 7

Image
EARLY CRETACEOUS England …..120 Million Years Ago The corpse stank, the rancid, sweet smell of death permeating the air; catching the lightest breeze and travelling downwind, enticing any and all who inhaled it. A crocodile tried hard to pull chunks from the iguanodon’s hide, its teeth, ill-suited to tearing flesh, and with a lack of purchase and unable to spin, it struggled repeatedly to enter the corpse, unaware that it assaulted the iguanodon’s back. Up above, on the dinosaur’s belly, small pterosaurs had been rewarded with more success, their slender jaws and needle-like teeth finding easy picking in a soft hole excavated by one of their larger cousins. Here they feasted, beady, black eyes casting about, nervous, for they lived in a dangerous world. The Iguanodon had died on a river bank; the water so low that the river had become a muddy track through the tangled forest; one of the myriad, meandering routes used by animals to reach the coast. There,
Read more

The story of millions of years part 11

Image
LATE CRETACEOUS North America ….. 72 Million Years Ago For days the volcanoes had erupted, the earth itself trembling, reshaping and reforming as to the west a mountain chain arose, its tall, jagged peaks destined to scratch the sky. Yet in their infancy, the peaks were red raw, open fissures spewing molten rock on to the surrounding land, burying and poisoning everything for several hundred miles. Forests had turned from green to grey, choked in ash, their potential crushed, and a beautiful, brilliant sunset stretched taut across the sky; a crimson tableau as the evening sun tried hard to peer through the toxic clouds. The world had changed, the plants gone, the ground soft, and yet the herd had returned; finding nothing familiar where they stood, mute and uncomprehending in this strange land. Here they would excavate nests, line them with broken shoots, bury the eggs until it was time for them to hatch. But there were no nests to reuse, no twigs and branc
Read more

The story of millions of years part 9

Image
LATE CRETACEOUS North America ….. 70 Million Years Ago Beneath its massive wings the world stretched away, a panorama of endless forest and open sea; the pterosaur immune to the staggering beauty it surveyed. Far below herds moved; long tailed, short necked herbivores winding their way towards the coast; old and young, adults and yearlings descending for the first time from the upland nesting grounds. Here, among the cypress stands, in a dappled world of water and half-light, they could feed; the lush estuarine forest fertilised from the highlands and the sea. Yet in a heartbeat and a tilt of its outstretched wings, ten thousand tons of living flesh receded from its mind as the pterosaur sped on, riding the wind, chasing its own shadow as it raced across the trees. It travelled west, the sun at its back, the mighty animal airborne now for several days, the world transformed from blue to green, water to land and back again. It had traversed the open ocean,
Read more