The story of millions of years part 15


Late Triassic

Europe… 220 Million Years ago

With mouths open wide they waited; a host of huge animals with spring-trap jaws, their mottled, warty bodies half submerged in the lake.

The water had gone down; the habitable space diminished, and now as summer wore on, the relentless sun evaporating their world about them; the great amphibians were forced ever closer together; reluctant neighbours, neither friends nor foes.

Their smaller relatives had long since disappeared; slithering into the forest with the spring rains and those that had not, those that had remained, had been eaten, the metoposaurs having no conscience when it came to consuming their own kind.

Now, prisoners of their wet skin, the adults endured the long months together, herded and hungry they played a waiting game; pitting fat reserves against the return of the rains; the water then rising; the myriad braded streams that criss-crossed the Triassic floodplain, overflowing, dispersing the now trapped giants far and wide.

But that was some months away, the lake, for now, their prison. There were fish in the lake, trapped also; large fish that hugged the bottom; hiding beneath the multitude of branches and weedy logs that clogged the muddy floor, and these, from time to time, came to the surface for a gulp of air, and did not return.

There were crabs also and clams, too few and far between or simply too hard to eat to interest the hungry mob, so the food they ate came from the shore; beasts terrestrial that ventured to the waters edge to drink, and then, in those few precious seconds between life and death, the stillness of the lake would be dispelled; the seemingly lumbering creatures, lightening fast and having no qualms when it came to stealing from each other and ripping the unfortunate visitor limb from limb.

Only the largest of visitors were safe; archosaurs; stout quadrupeds, too strong to be hauled easily into the water.

These, the metoposaurs watched with impartial, black eyes; eyes as cold as their blood; twin, bony turrets standing proud above the surface, locking the intruders with an unblinking stare.

But sometimes the visitors were smaller; lightweight, unwary travellers arriving through from the humid forest; edging towards the pollen-dusted water to drink.

Here in silence they could slake their thirst; the wide, tree-shrouded lake green with reflection, peppered with baiera leaves, their long, lacy fronds, unmoving yellow boats on the stagnant surface.

Nothing moved save the haze of flies and occasional fleeting pterosaur; aeronautical acrobats; that dipped and dodged, dancing with their own reflection above the silent mirror.

Then, certain it was alone; the visitor, emboldened by calm and spellbound by the wide stretch of water, would finally approach; pushing through the fringe of horsetails, before placing its life in the balance, sure it was safe to drink.

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