Prehistoric Park: Dino-babies
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.
Note: this is a latest story in a series; other, older stories in this series should be read for a better understanding.
The morning dawned sunny but chill, as yesterday's rainstorm did result in a drop of temperature – at least for now.
"So now you are going back to Pleistocene Australia to learn more about the marsupial lion," Suzanne told Nigel, "okay. Last time you went there, you brought back the marsupial in question, as well as a giant echidna and another flightless bird, aside from the South American terror bird," she paused. "How are they doing?"
"The echidna is almost ready with her egg, and the Genyornis feels right at home too," Nigel said brightly. "They aren't eve making any trouble, not unlike the marsupials, over there."
Instinctively, he and Suzanne looked. Sure enough, the Thylacosmilus was trotting through the park's grounds, following the marsupial lion, who was doing the same, but via fences, trees, and the like, doing its' best to avoid walking on the ground.
"This reminds me of the modern Malaysian sun bears," Nigel looked genuinely thoughtful. "Out of all the modern bears they are probably the ones who spend most of their time in trees – to avoid tigers and leopards and other bigger predators. I wonder if the marsupial lion is acting so as well, – because Australia had some big carnivores in the past, especially the reptiles-"
"Okay, good luck all the same – and a sun bear? Really? Is there a moon bear too?" Suzanne could not help but to ask from sheer curiosity.
"Yes. It also lives in Asia, but not in the tropics – mostly in the Himalayas mountains, especially to the north. It is similar to the black bear, which is why it is also called the Asian black bear," Nigel replied, sagely. "Bears are very fascinating, maybe even more so than the cats are – but for now I need to go to Australia where are no cats or bears or any other placental mammals aside from some rodents. Wish me luck!" And he left.
Suzanne just shook her head and gave a look to the two Smilodon, which were still following her around. "He is just crazy," she began, but was interrupted, as two of the park's staff arrived, bearing news: the Triceratops' eggs had hatched!
As she left for (admittedly very important) business, she did not notice the odd twitch in the fur of the Thylacosmilus' belly…
/ / /
Back in the Pleistocene Australia, the things hadn't changed very much – the sun was still hot, the land – dry and open, more of a scrubland than anything else – and there were parrots, large cockatoos of some sort, still flying overhead with shrill, harsh, croaking cries.
"Those are black cockatoos," Nigel noticed, idly, the birds flying overhead. "In our times, they are still around. There are several species of them, and one of them is called, more correctly, the palm cockatoo, but we are not here for them. There are modern parrots in the Prehistoric Park already, so we will not try to capture the parrots, or any other birds, since we already have acquired the Genyornis. Well, a Genyornis-"
It was then that Nigel, alongside his party, (still distracted by the parrots and thoughts about other Australian birds and beasts), walked into a clearing. There was a dead kangaroo – a giant prehistoric one, but still dead – and several creatures, looking almost like dinosaurs, were eating it.
"Be very quiet," Nigel hissed, as he and his people moved slowly backwards into the nearby shrubs. "Those creatures are Quinkana, the last of the land-dwelling crocodiles. The marsupial lion is about 1.5 m long; the Thylacosmilus is a bit shorter; and those reptiles? They must be at least 3 m long, and-" Nigel froze, as one of the Quinkana got a good grip on the dead kangaroo and pulled it off, by jerking its head upwards and standing upwards, bipedally, just like some sort of a strange dinosaur. "They can stand on two legs – to reach into trees and the like. The dead kangaroo appears to be even larger than the Genyornis and the terror bird are, but the Quinkana can handle it just fine."
CRASH!
Something large and heavy appeared on the scene. The Quinkana stopped eating the dead kangaroo and hissed. Several other Australian animals, similar to the modern rat-kangaroos, but bigger, fled through the scrub away from the noise. Instinctively, Nigel and the others followed them, but one of Nigel's people stepped on another giant prehistoric echidna instead, and-
/ / /
The Triceratops hatchlings were adorable. They were colored in various shades of dark (or opaque) green, and they raced around their mother's legs in a manner not unlike that of modern piglets. Compared to their parents, they were tiny, with neither frills nor horns, just tiny vertical bumps on their noses and brows.
Theodora, their mother, was busy mothering them, walking slowly around, making sure that none of them remained behind, dropped some fresh new foliage to them, leaves and needless first, while Theo did his best to be both independent and fatherly, grazing nearby, seemingly separate from the rest of his family, but clearly looking out for them and keeping an eye on the neighbourhood too, clearly ready to jump to defence as soon as a threat appeared.
"It's a good thing that as mammals we just are not perceived as threats," Suzanne muttered to Bob, "otherwise Theo would charge for sure!"
"You think so?" the groundskeeper sceptically asked, giving a look first at the Smilodon, who stared back innocently, as only cats can, regardless of what their size is. "Between them and the marsupials, the young couple over here may lose a youngster or two before too long, and then they will start charging at any mammal instead-"
"I don't know; the Thylacoleo, yes, has eaten a sauropod egg or two, but so have the Troodon and the terror bird-" Suzanne paused, as she pointed to the carnivores in question: they were standing in the shadows of some trees, having once more escaped from their own enclosures. Theo could not see them, but he could smell them, and the late Cretaceous North America had both troodontid dinosaurs and birds, and the Triceratops did not care much for either: Theo huffed and began to paw the ground a little. Both the Troodon and the terror bird moved away.
"See?" Suzanne continued. "None of our carnivores want to tangle with Theo over the youngsters; not yet, anyhow?"
"Maybe," Bob confessed, "maybe. Where is the marsupial lion, though? It is probably the smartest of them all, and it can climb trees-"
A sound distracted them all, (except for the baby dinosaurs). The humans, in particular, looked around, and sure enough, they say the Thylacoleo pull the other marsupial carnivore up a tree, using one of its' paws as a grappling hook. Then, it and the marsupial sabre-tooth just sat there, on two different branches, still trying to figure out a method of communication.
"I don't know, Bob," Suzanne was genuinely thoughtful. "The Thylacosmilus isn't that dangerous-looking; the Smilodon here aren't fully grown yet, yet they are already bigger than it is. In addition, the Thylacoleo itself-" The two of them looked at the two marsupials. "Wait. What's that on the other side of the tree?"
"It's a nest."
"…Yes, Bob, I know that. Whose nest is it, I mean?"
/ / /
Actually, an echidna is not as spiny as a hedgehog, let alone an American porcupine. However, this was a giant prehistoric echidna, with extra-long needles, so getting stabbed by it in the foot hurt. The poor man who was stabbed was down for the moment, and normally the Quinkana would investigate his distress with all the gore that would follow later – but they did not.
Instead, they were busy with the Megalania – the greatest land predator of the prehistoric Australia. The land crocodiles were twice as big as the marsupial lion was. The Megalania, the giant lizard, was twice as big as any of the land crocodiles instead – or the dead kangaroo, for that matter. The deceased marsupial was bigger than a person would be, bigger even than a Genyornis, yet the Megalania dwarfed it, as it ate the corpse.
The Quinkana circled the Megalania yet they did not attack the giant lizard, and it did not appear to be very impressed by the land crocodiles. One of them, however, did move closer than the others, snapping its jaws and hissing angrily. Immediately, the Megalania lashed out with its tail, hitting the smaller reptile in one of the shoulders. The blow appeared to be slow, yet the hit Quinkana just collapsed, and crumpled, and was clearly incapacitated. Instantly, the rest of the land crocodiles were upon it, tearing and eating it alive – in the wild, reptiles were even less altruistic than the mammals were.
"I think that we've seen enough," Nigel muttered, as he and his people picked up their belongings and were moving further back, complete with their wounded – and the second giant echidna. "A marsupial lion is tough, of course, but I doubt that it would be more than a snack to either of these reptiles – it didn't even stand up to the Genyornis, although the brush fire…never mind. We're leaving."
There was a rustle in the shrubs, and out emerged a snake – a constrictor, another giant reptile of Australia…
"This," Nigel spoke with enthusiasm, "is a Wonambi. Let's see if I can capture it!"
The others just twitched.
/
"Well, Suzanne?" Bob asked, as he and some other people held the ladder upon which stood the park's vet. "Whose nest is it?"
"The Microraptors'," Suzanne replied promptly. "And considering that the hatchlings are actually really large, and seem to be covered in feathers, rather than down, they have made it quite some time ago."
"Yes, this sounds about right," Bob nodded, looking rather sheepish. "We've seen such nests around the park for a while, but they don't look too different from bird nests, and we got many tropical bird species in the park too-"
"I know," Suzanne nodded, "I have seen them too, remember? I guess that we got so caught-up with Theo's family, and the hadrosaurs, and even the sauropods, that we forgot about the little people. Our loss. Maybe next time we can get Nigel to bring back someone small and cuddly instead?"
"Speaking of Nigel and bringing back - where are the marsupials?" Bob belatedly remembered the Australian carnivores. "Are they there yet?"
"No, they actually fled when we got the ladder into position," Suzanne pointed to a side. "The marsupial lion landed first – on its feet, just as a cat would – and the Thylacosmilus landed second, onto the lion."
Bob blinked and looked in that direction. Neither of the marsupials sat on top of one another, but were rather having another face-off. The Thylacoleo in particular was sitting on its haunches, (and yes, it did look rather bear-like in this position) and was staring with its big glassy eyes down at the Thylacosmilus, who was crouching and generally looking submissive. Considering that the marsupial lion was responding to it, not correctly, the situation was probably made worse by the minute, when… Nigel arrived, carrying another giant echidna and an even more colossal constrictor snake.
"Hey, Bob!" he said, smiling brightly. "I have resolved the issue of the Australian lion and brought back one of its contemporaries – well, two, if you count the second echidna-"
It was then that several other Australian marsupials came onto the scene. These ones were looking like kangaroos, or perhaps – potoroos, but they were smaller than humans, which is why when the predators on the scene saw them, they all snapped to attention, (metaphorically speaking), and the oversized potoroos just scattered, fleeing all over the park…
"Nigel!" the other people yelled at the Englishman, who just sheepishly smiled and turned off the time portal, before replying with simply:
"Oops?"
End