Prehistoric Park: Pliocene South America
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.
Note: this story takes place after 'the hadrosaurs', so the latter should be read for better understanding.
"Thus, after my visits to late Cretaceous North America, I have discovered that the troodons are not just scavengers, but clever and competent carnivores in their own right," Nigel finished telling the others about his last visit, one that brought back a couple of duck-billed hadrosaurs into Prehistoric Park. "They are used to playing a secondary role to albertosaurs, daspletosaurs, and other earlier cousins of the T-Rex, but if they are given a chance, they will hunt as well as scavenge."
"Good for them," Suzanne said with some sarcasm in her voice at least. "Now are you going to study the terror birds next?"
"Yes!" Nigel blithely ignored the sarcasm, "I am! It is back to the Pliocene South America for us! See you later!"
"I was being sarcastic-" Suzanne said weakly, but Nigel was already gone.
/ / /
The (early) Pliocene South America greeted Nigel and his team with a lot of heat, reminiscent of a day that promises a thunderstorm later on. A skeleton of a large, armadillo-like animal was lying, feet down, in a nearby puddle, and further on a live one was grazing on the grass.
"That is a glyptodont of some sort," Nigel said excitedly. "Remember when we captured the original sabre-tooth cats? We found a modern, small armadillo on the last trip; this is one of its giant, prehistoric cousins. We're not bringing back a live one, we currently got too many animals with tricky diets, but maybe we will bring back the skeleton, as part of the décor, for the atmosphere…"
"Nigel!" one of his people called out, pointing the man's attention further down the horizon, where the live glyptodont was joined by what could only be a giant ground sloth of some sort. The two animals were clearly keeping their distance from each other: the giant armadillo was grazing on the local grass, while the ground sloth was browsing in the few sparse trees. Standing upright, it was twice as tall as an average human was, or even a bear. It was browsing with all the nonchalance of an average elephant, and clearly enjoying its solitude – even the glyptodont was moving away from it.
The latter, it should be noted, clearly was not a pushover of itself; rather, it was built like a living tank of some sort, but even it had no intent of staying close to the ground sloth.
"This is South America's version of the Serengeti," Nigel said thoughtfully, as the ground sloth, in the distance, dropped to all fours and began to move slowly along to another tree. "In the Old World, there were the ancestral rhinos and elephants, some of which, like the Deinotherium, were bigger than the modern African elephants and even some of the mammoths, but here and new, it's giant cousins of the modern armadillo and sloth-"
Something burst out of the trees and grabbed the ground sloth by the neck in a manner not unlike that of a sabre-tooth cat, but it was different from the Smilodon that Nigel had encountered in their other trips to South America: the coloration was different, the tail was different – long and thin, almost weasel-like – and the body too was less robust and somewhat more sinuous and skinny than that of the Smilodon was.
That said, it certainly did appear to possess long, sabre-like canines, as it opened its mouth wide – and there was something strange about its' chin as well – and sliced through the ground sloth's neck with a lot of effort and a lot of blood. The ground sloth collapsed, and Nigel, alongside his crew, got their first proper chance to see the new animal's head. It was not very feline, actually – too blunt and high-set, with a sheath-like growths on both sides of its chin.
"I think this is a marsupial sabre-tooth – a Thylacosmilus," Nigel said excitedly. "It was one of the top predators of its time: the ground sloth here was probably twice as big as it was and much heavier, yet the Thylacosmilus had killed it!"
Even as Nigel was speaking, the terror birds did finally appear on the scene, charging the marsupial, since they did have the advantage of numbers here, 2 to 1. The marsupial carnivore tried to defend its kill, swiping with its paws and showing-off its sabres, but the terror birds were not backing down, using their superior height and their own beaks, sharp as scimitars, to drive it away…
The stand-off was brought to an abrupt end, when something huge and black, bigger and taller than either the terror bird or the marsupial, appeared out of the sky, sending the marsupial flying and exploding one of the terror birds into a cloud of feathers, before tearing into the ground sloth with its own beak.
"It's an argentavis! It was Earth's biggest bird that had ever taken to the air!" Nigel was truly excited now. "Some cryptozoologists believe that it may've survived into modern times, giving rise to the rumors of the thunderbird of North America, but nothing concrete has ever been discovered. Right now, though, the argentavis is one of the top predators of South America – nothing can challenge it, it seems."
Something appeared in the long, Pliocene grass of South America – another marsupial sabre-tooth. It appeared to be exhausting and not very threatening to Nigel…i.e., it was not interested in threatening anyone, period.
"Fascinating," Nigel spoke to no one in particular. "Let's take this marsupial sabretooth back to the park!"
/ / /
"You know, Nigel, I cannot help but feel that you're messing with us," the groundskeeper Bob grouchily told the somewhat younger man. "You went to study terror birds – you brought back another sabre-tooth, and one that is truly weird!"
"That's because it is," Nigel agreed, lightly. "This is a marsupial sabre-tooth – it isn't really related to any of the sabre-toothed cats, but more so to the opossum, and the kangaroo, and yes, the marsupial lion of Australia, though probably not very close – Australia and South America had drifted apart a long time before Pliocene…but then again, the ancestry of the marsupials isn't really well-known…"
The two men looked at the Thylacosmilus' habitat. It was a large enclosure, especially for a single animal, with several trees for shade, and a sleeping enclosure, if the marsupial would want some privacy, and a watering hole, (and a food dispenser), and an (artificial) glyptodont skeleton – for habitat enrichment, just in case. Marsupials were not supposed to be as smart as the placental mammals were, but you never know.
"Nigel, can we talk?" Suzanne appeared on the scene, followed by her own sabre-tooth feline entourage. "About this new, marsupial sabre-tooth…"
She did not finish, as the two Smilodon and the Thylacosmilus saw each other. Immediately, the two juvenile Smilodon turned from overgrown house cats into something more feral, as they snarled and growled, walking forth with their hair raised in a mane-like fashion, and their sabres, (not fully grown, but already very impressive), flashing in the sunlight.
The Thylacosmilus yowled, looking desperately for a place to hide, when something else made their appearance – the marsupial lion. It was still often out of its enclosure, prowling the park alongside the park's resident terror bird and Troodon. Right now, neither of them was in evidence, and the Thylacoleo, standing on its' back legs, did not look very lion-like, but rather bear-like instead. The lack of sabres to call its own only further emphasized the similarity – not that the Thylacoleo needed it – it had powerful molars and incisors, which formed an almost continuous blade in each side of the jaw instead. Between this, as well as the long, powerful front limbs, complete with (fake) opposable thumbs, the result was a very different animal from any sabre-tooth.
The Smilodon were some of the biggest cats that had ever lived, and they had sabres, but never before they had seen a marsupial lion, so they were at loss at what to do. One of them swiped at the marsupial, thinking that it would go down easily.
The Thylacoleo swiped back, hitting the juvenile Smilodon on the shoulder, knocking it off its feet. Then it grabbed the second feline in a bear-like hug, pulled it upwards, emitted a very strange sound and flung the feline away.
It was enough for the Smilodon – they yowled and fled…back to the vet, who was beginning to realize that she smelled enough like the felines to be in real danger here. Fortunately, the Thylacoleo did not appear to be interested in continuing the fight – rather, it quickly climbed over and into the other marsupial's enclosure and began to smell it, even as the Thylacosmilus smelled back. After several minutes, the two disengaged from each other, with the Thylacoleo climbing onto one of the trees, the Thylacosmilus climbed onto the fake glyptodont skeleton, and the pair continued to eye each other suspiciously, on occasion emitting soft, short, and strange sounds.
Nigel blinked and looked at the others, including the juvenile Smilodon, who were doing their best to hide behind the vet, while looking nonchalantly as they did this. They did not do a very good job with either.
"Okay, I didn't expect this to happen," Nigel confessed to the others.
A whole lot of sceptical, wry, and sarcastic looks from both humans and Smilodon was his own answer – "Ya think?"
End