The story of millions of years part 13

LATE CRETACEOUS

Mongolia….. 70 million years ago

The massive trees cast massive shadows; oases of cool shade from the glaring sun, and to step between them was to step from night to day, eyes adjusting rapidly, pupils contracting to block out the dazzling light.

Then, safely back beneath the canopy of heavy branches, those same muscles that had so recently closed would dilate, expanding the aperture of the pupils so that the hunter could once again see.

The dinosaur had stepped from light to shade all day, its drab, downy plumage doing little to keep it cool, and it paused now, jaws open, stubby wings lifted, shedding heat, waiting until it had sufficiently recovered before it moved on.

Evening or dawn were better hours to hunt; when the hot day had solidified into to a red gash across the sky, or the day proper had yet to begin, those misty, cooler hours before the sun fully rose; a time when larger creatures waited to bask in its rejuvenating rays.

Not so Mononykus now placing its feet with care between the carpets of fallen fronds; its scaly legs impervious to the sharp points of coniferous leaves.

The dinosaur was small; dwarfed by fallen limbs; its prey, not the great herbivores that clustered about the lake, far beyond the forest margin, nor their young, now already grown larger than itself, but creatures ad infinitum, that could be discovered with every scraping of its foot, every probing of its narrow snout; the smallest of creatures that lived in darkness; exploiting cracks in wood or the underside of logs, tiny pickings that kept a tireless hunter busy throughout the day.

And when evening finally came and the heat fell, then there were mountains to climb, for out beyond the safety of the forest wall; in the lush river-cut flatlands stood clusters of earthen spires; tall; irregular peaks constructed by a million unconscious minds.

These, under cover of darkness, Mononykus might plunder, force open with the aid of a single stout claw on its atrophied wings; improvised digging tools utilised to break and enter while the defending armies swarmed, and if the plunderer was lucky, as often it was, it may find a lizard or a young crocodile seeking safety in the cool chambers beneath the ground.

Mononykus wasn’t exclusive in what it ate; its jaws of needle teeth more than capable of gripping a tail, snatching a hatchling from a nest or breaking an egg; an opportunist feeder with sharp eyes and a sharp mind; an elevated, lightweight stalker always ready to strike.

As the afternoon wore on the disabling heat diminished by a stirring breeze, Mononykus emerged from the shadows of the trees, taking its first tentative steps into a different land, each careful footstep recorded fleetingly in the dry earth.

Erosion undermined the forest here, toppling the magnificent trees; an encroaching swath of fragile stream-washed ground, its progress halted only by the erratic, living forest wall, the tall, grey trunks of long-dead giants, now a rotting palisade entombed and half-buried by wind-blown dust

There were dangers beyond the forest that Mononykus did not comprehend; had never seen, creatures outwith its experience that could crush it in a foot-fall; its world and theirs separated by size, creatures so vast they would seldom venture from the distant lakes and meandering, river- cut mud, a fly-blackened waste of horsetails, fern prairies and scrubby trees.

But today, drawn from safety by a temping breeze, the small opportunist picked its way between the tangle of exposed roots and fern fronds, following its own shadow along a wide, shrub-topped channel where once a stream had run.

The day had cooled, the sticky air, filled with clusters of small flies, pernicious, swarming insects that hung on the breeze,

They were beyond the reach of Mononykus, but not the swift, iridescent hunters that swooped amongst them; quadruple, gossamer wings ablaze in the sun. There were other aeronauts too, larger than they but no less agile, echoes of the first vertebrates to take to the skies, swift, toothy killers now few and far between.

None of this interested Mononykus, its senses engaged in something more; an acidic scent pervasive on the wind, its nose leading it beneath the branches of a huge cycad that overhung the channel, dusky leaves thick to the ground.

Here, in the cool shadows ripe cones rotted; the long, twisting, red pollinators decaying beneath a defence of protective thorns; sharp, leathery leaves ineffective against the myriad, pollen-dusted moths compelled to investigate the ruby prize.

This is what Mononykus sought; plump pickings easily snatched in the arboreal shade, and stretching on its long hind legs, it leapt, several times; the precision of each strike rewarding it with a mouthful of fluttering wings.

The moths were rich in protein; succulent treasures fast consumed, and consume them the dinosaur did; those that were in reach.

It was a boon; a dietary advantage bestowed by nature, for the moths were numerous and required little energy to collect; their ruined remains now scattering the earth at the dinosaur’s feet, and these too it now plundered; its pollen encrusted snout sifting through the leftovers of its own feast, careful not to miss a thing.

It had been a long day, the small animal sated and tired, and as the evening turned to night, the Earth revolving inexorably around its star, so too in a cosmic mechanism beyond the dinosaur’s comprehending, the planet’s own satellite rose into the sky, banishing the last, long inky shadows cast by the falling sun; the giant luminous orb now hanging above the treetops blocking from view the spectacle of the heavens; a hundred million points of light that a naked eye might see.

Mononykus stood on one leg, asleep, its narrow head tucked beneath its short wing, secure in the bastion of cycad bows; an interlacing network of impervious leaves.

Here it was safe, and when it awoke later its large eyes would be suitably designed to gather light, its coat of downy feathers enough to keep it warm on a cool Cretaceous night.