There is something missing from our world: the amazing animals that time has left behind.
But what if we could bring them back? What if extinction didn't have to be forever?
We're going back in time on a safari with a difference as wildlife adventurer Nigel Marvin plunges into prehistory to rescue creatures on the brink of extinction.
His plan is to bring them back to the safety of the present and give them a second chance.
This time Nigel travels back 515million years to Cambrian British Colombia to catch the Earth's first and most unusual superpredator.
Welcome to the ultimate wildlife sanctuary.
Welcome to Prehistoric Park!
Chapter 2- The First Superpredator
Nigel was walking around the park in the early morning light. He passed the Allosaur exhibit where the five dinosaurs were lounging under a tree before the sun got up. Some Neanderthals and Homo Sapien workers were walking and laughing together. It was good that they got along well, after all the Neanderthals only differed from them with DNA. Nigel soon stumbled along the brand new building opposite the Bug House full of Carboniferous invertebrates. On the doors of the building were fossils of ammonites, fish and trilobites. Nigel entered the new building to see Bob and Susan looking at an empty tank. Yoren the Neanderthal was beside them as well.
"Hello there you guys," Nigel greeted.
"Hello there," the three replied.
"Nigel," Yoren said "If we have tanks in the sea why do we have these land ones in this, what is it called? Oh yes an Aquarium?"
"A good point. Our next creature I plan to save is too small to build a sea tank but was the largest predator at the time. It was the world's first super predator from the Burgess Shale, Canada 515 million years ago."
Nigel pointed to a fossil on the wall of a bizarre creature. It was a metre long with lobes on the side, two curved appendages at the mouth and two eye stalks. At the end was what looked like a whip tail and more of the lobes.
"Wait that's a Anomalocaris," Bob said "I recognise it from my book."
"Yes and I'll use the time portal mark 4 that we've made to catch it. It'll be as sort of a test for it so later I can catch larger creatures such as the Pterygotus. Luckily we fitted a holding pen at the back. I'll be off then."
"Oh yeah Nigel," Susan said "The company which supplied our submarines asked us a tally for all the creatures in case we want any supplies."
"Let's start it now and I'll help you when I get back."
In the Cambrian period the Earth looked very alien. On the land were no plants, the climate was drastically cold and there was little oxygen in the air. Not the ideal holiday destination.
Nigel and the crew were wrapped in warm clothing as they had oxygen masks over their mouths occasionally to breathe out of standing on the yacht. Whenever they took the mask from their mouths their breath was visible before their eyes.
"Earth is still recovering from the Snowball Effect which happened when the Earth cooled down after volcanic eruptions. In the sea it's nice and warm but for us we aren't that lucky," Nigel explained "Land plants haven't evolved yet so there's little oxygen in the air so we have to use these oxygen canisters every few breathes. We can still breathe though as there is oxygen is in the atmosphere but not enough."
It was night and the moon hung like an omniscient giant in the sky, watching the future humans like a giant. Stars glimmered like eyes overhead. Nigel went into the cabin of the yacht and sat down. Luckily it was warm and had plenty of oxygen so he could dispense with the oxygen canister. Nigel pressed a button on the side of the cabin and the bottom of the yacht slid back to reveal a glass bottom. There were multiple woodlouse like creatures named trilobites scuttling around the bottom of the sea bed for food.
"We'll use this nifty gadget to find our Anomalocaris."
Back in Prehistoric Park Bob, Susan and Yoren have started the great animal tally, only now they have to tally the Tyrannosaurs.
Matilda and Brutus were asleep under the tree as their young were playing in the sun. Already at a few months old they were eight foot high.
"So we have two adults in here and three young," Bob said "And two adults in the other exhibit."
Two of the young, Susan and Henry, were larger than their brother Osborn. It quickly came apparent that the two older ones did not like their younger brother when they started viciously biting him. Osborn started bleeding greatly so Bob decided to step in. He ran to the end of the hide and pulled out the hose pipe and sprayed the angry young but the adults still slept. He immediately radioed the crew to send helicopter to move Osborn.
"Nigel told me this would happen eventually; we saw it with Terrance and Matilda. They're getting territorial. At least this time we're prepared. I built a special adjoined exhibit for when it happened. Susan also will have to check over poor little Osborn."
In Cambrian Canada Nigel has decided to take a dip in the sea in hope to find his Anomalocaris.
Nigel was in a wetsuit holding a strange hand held device. He slipped on his air tank and gave a thumb up.
"I've decided it's best to swim in this sea in hope to find our Anomalocaris and some other weird animals."
Nigel dived into the water and was hit by a rush of warmth. The sea was much warmer than the bitterness of the land which he was very grateful for. He swam around for a few minutes before turning to find his super predator. A few trilobites swam around the sea bed snuffling through the detritus of the sea bed.
"This species of trilobites are called Olenoides serratus. They are a very common species of trilobite and that is saying something of a species that lived from the Cambrian all the way to the Permian. They'll be the perfect test subjects for the time portal mark 4."
Nigel swam in front of the trilobites and placed the hand held device near where they were sifting through the sediment. He pressed a button on the side and the time portal burst into life. At least six of the trilobites swam through the portal before Nigel turning off the portal.
"Success! Mark 1 was our normal sticks, mark 2 was the yacht, mark 3 was the plane and this is mark 4. Now let's find us an Anomalocaris."
Back in Prehistoric Park Susan has been checking over poor little Osborn in his new pen.
Susan had placed multiple dissolvable stiches on the Tyrannosaurs cuts from his attack. He was happy in the new exhibit as shown when he was chasing a lizard around the small water source that he has.
"It's a good thing we built this when we did," Susan said "Nigel told us that three is too many for the parents to look after so the bigger offspring will chase or even kill the younger one off. In the wild the youngest would die but at least here he will be safe."
The tiny dinosaur roared happily and waved his little hands with delight. Content with the status of Osborn she decided to check up on other residents of the park. First she looked at the Smilodons in their extended exhibit. When the babies had grown to a certain size they slowly reintroduced the young and thankfully they were accepted. Then came the Megapnosaurus whose faces were red with blood from the carcass that they were eating.
The Megapnosaurus were saved from the Early Jurassic when they were scared off from their meal from the larger Dilophosaurus.
Content that the small therapods were fine she checked up on the Velociraptors saved from Cretaceous Mongolia. The five feathered predators were chasing a small mammal through the bushes of their exhibit. One caught the tail of the rat and lifted it up triumphantly before swallowing it whole. The pack mates started to make strange barking noises in anger for being cheated of their meal. The park was coming along nicely. Bob had told her earlier that Nigel had brought back a few trilobites so they had to be added to the animal tally. The only thing that bothered her was which company had asked them for the tally. And did Bob remember to fill in that hole at the bottom of Osborn's exhibit?
In the Cambrian 515million years ago Nigel has led the yacht to a small area teaming with obscure life but while these animals attract a few hungry Anomalocaris?
Nigel swam into a small area with large sponges and early corals growing off of multiple rocks. Some early algae plants grew around the rocks for any herbivores to eat. The majority of them were the Olenoides serratus from earlier but there were some other equally unusual invertebrates swimming around on the ground and in the sea. Nigel swam towards a small group of strange creatures in the shape of an S. They had small spikes coming from the top of it and strange tentacles from the bottom of it. The invertebrates were only the size of a hand.
"These are Hallucigenia. They are strange creatures from this time period. They are related to modern day starfish and sea urchins so you can see the resemblance. With our fascination with the unusual at the Park I'll catch a few but I need a little help. They move like their modern day relatives."
A small tank was dropped into the sea next to Nigel to get the small creatures to have a move on. It was difficult to grab them due to the spines but when avoiding them it was easy to catch the Hallucigenia and place them in the tank. Nigel simply dropped the invertebrates into the tank. When he had nine of them he surfaced and passed the tank to the crew before continuing his search. If Nigel was on the land he would have gasped at the sight he saw when he entered the water. There were a few thumb length invertebrates and they were strange looking. They looked like a shrimp but had a clump of five eyes and a strange mouth on the end of a stalk.
"This is Opabinia. As you can tell when they were first reconstructed the look provoked laughter. This stalk mouth isn't a real mouth but they use it to grab food and bring it to the real mouth and look at this."
A tiny shoal of inch long fish swam by. They resembled hagfish and had no visible eyes. In fact they looked see through.
"These are Pikaia and are an early fish. Like modern day hagfish they are jawless and you may find this hard to believe but are our earliest ancestors."
One Opabinia used its strange stalk mouth to grab one Pikaia and crushed it to kill it. Nigel's urge to save the animals got the better of him and activated the time portal mark 4. The shoal swam through the portal and at least five Opabinia chased after them for food. Now time for the Anomalocaris.
Back in Prehistoric Park Bob has to herd back an animal back to his enclosure after putting the new arrivals in a tank.
Bob sat in his jeep placing chunks of meat on the floor. Osborn the little Tyrannosaur followed the trail of the meat towards his exhibit. Soon they managed to open his enclosure gate and Osborn ran into his home. Bob sighed as he was locked in.
"Little Osborn here found something that I thought he would ignore," Bob explained "There was a relatively small hole near the opposite side of his water but I thought he couldn't swim. He can."
Osborn ran towards his water to look for the hole but was disappointed when he couldn't find it. He roared with frustration.
"We found him watching the Ornithamimus, scared them half to death. Luckily I filled up the hole before he decided he wanted a snack. Then Nigel brought back some weird looking sea creatures other than the trilobite. My job's never done."
In the Cambrian Nigel may have found his super predator but will it fancy a human lunch?
The strangest looking animal Nigel had ever seen swam into the little area. It looked like a clawless shrimp but had two curved appendages at the mouth and two eyes on stalks. It had plate like lobes on the side and two whip like tails. This was it.
"Anomalocaris. They reach a metre long and may be small compared to modern day standards but they are the largest predator here."
Three others joined the first and one grabbed a nearby trilobite with the front appendage. Using the appendage it tore the trilobite in half and ate some of the flesh inside the armour.
"Look at that. You can see why they are top predator."
One swam next to him and took a swipe at him with the appendage. Nigel managed to swerve out of the way and bat it off with the time portal device.
"Whoa. Let's catch them for the park before one decides to take a chunk out of me."
He activated the time portal and two swam towards him and went through the portal. He turned around to catch another one and once again to catch the other.
"Yes. Now let's head home."
When Nigel returns the super predators are settled into their tanks in the Aquarium.
Some crew members had threw some chum into the tank for the four predators to eat. Everyone who saw them commented on how strange they are. In nearby tanks the other residents swam around happily.
"Well the Cambrian had weird animals," Bob said.
Next time on Prehistoric Park Nigel travels back to Cretaceous Africa to save the largest carnivore known and the park has a strange visitor. All next time on Prehistoric Park.
Special thanks to Dunk234, AnimaNinjaFan and AwsomeDude4
