With their first rescues of the day now back at the park, Nigel and the team are on now on the search for their main targets. All around them, the forest slowly springs to life. The birds were joined by various insects and primitive primates, as well as the occasional frog. All around the underbrush, the group could hear the movement of mammals and lizards plus the occasional large arthropod, all searching the leaf litter for food.

"So," began Alice, "this is a world of jungles."

"It is," replied Tristan.

"...I could enjoy it here."

"Me too," intoned Vera. "Mild, warm, full of edible fruits..."

"And a couple of days of endless rain," finished Aiden, a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

"...Never mind. Too much rain for me."

Tristan could only smirk at this. "You're no different from the rest of us except Nigel - you're too used to the heat, even if you wine about it. Just a few days in a place with more than a foot of rain a year and you'd be waterlogged."

"Guilty as charged. Now, what other kinds of animals can we expect to encounter here, Tristan?"

"Well, let's see. First off, most of the herbivores will belong to a group called Condylarths. It includes all phenacodonts, but it all includes the more omnivorous arctocyonids and the dinoceratans, like Uintatherium."

"Oh, you mean that weirdo. Well, carry on."

"As for carnivores, the main predators at this time are either mesonychids or credonts - early relatives of Hyaenodon. Carnivorans won't appear for a few million years-"

"Team, stop."

Heeding Nigel's advice, the group looked forward.

In front of them were a group of small mammals with long, trunk-like snouts. The tiny creatures were using said snouts to forage through the underbrush, occasionally lifting their heads upwards when they found a tasty morsel. Some were more interested, however, in drinking from a nearby lake, or cleaning a log of insects. If they were unlucky in the searches for long enough, they would hop over to another area, though if one animal poached another's feeding area, it would be charged and forced to run with its tail between its legs. Idly, the group noted that they were better runners than hoppers.

"Are those Leptictidium?" questioned Vera.

"No, they are not," replied Nigel. "This is Leptictis, a close cousin. These creatures might be close to their European cousins, but they're runners, not hoppers. This group must be exploiting the early morning to forage before predators start to wake up."

"Okay. Can we rescue them?"

"We are in an alternate but parallel timeline to our own, so we can rescue any animal we want to. Even if we couldn't, though, we could still rescue these beautiful creatures, as their family disappeared without a trace in the Oligocene. Maybe they couldn't deal with the new predators, maybe they couldn't adapt to more open environments, but whatever the cause, they went extinct and left no descendants."

"Well, then what are we waiting for?" questioned Tristan.

XXXXXXX

Above the humans, the carnivore watched as they began to set up the portal. It had been staring them for some time, wondering what the new arrivals would do.

It had been stalking the long snouts for some time when the bipeds showed up. The minute it had smelled them, many conflicting instincts had run through its head - they smelled like plesiadapids, and its first instinct toward those was to attack, yet their size made it more inclined to ignore them, lest it get involved in a fight it could not win. Ultimately, it had decided to simply wait and see what they would do. Perhaps they would attack the long snouts, and give it an opening to strike? If that happened, they might prove to be an unexpected boon.

Of course, there were other problems it had to deal with due to waiting. When it had first arrived, it was the only member of its kind to be stalking the long snouts. Now, it had been joined by five more of its kind. While the shear number of long snouts who had been attracted here by a combination of termites, ants, and insects attracted to tree sap, things were still getting crowded.

Despite the seeming simplicity of it, though, the carnivores did not dare to attack the long snouts by the lake - they had managed to secure protection for themselves that not even these climbers could overcome.

XXXXXXXX

Back at the park, Elise is helping out Ted.

Cautiously, Elise moved the sheet across the rough skin, using the edge to remove he various parasites from the giant's body. Nearby, remoras worked overtime to clean off their host.

Above all of the, Ted was busy making sure the megalodon would not bite.

"I don't know why, but this female's gotten infested by parasites. We've been scrubbing her since Nigel left, but still, she needs a lot more cleaning before she's ready to go."

Beside him, a trilobite moved onto the shark's skin and began to nibble at the tiny parasites, eager to fill its belly. Ted could only smile at this sight. "HOnestly, I never actually expected it to be possible to use trilobites to clean off such a big shark, but I can't complain. They're really saving us time."

Suddenly, a frigate bird descended onto the shark and tried to snap up the arthropod cleaner, only to swiftly receive a punch from Ted. Dazed, it flew away, leaving the three lobed invertebrate free to continue its work.

It seems that some species do not get the park's motto.

XXXXXXX

Back in the past, the team is putting their plan into action.

With the portal set up and whirring, the team placed their bait: a group of crickets, which, in turn, were baited toward the portal by carrots and other plants the group had placed on the other side. The smell carried through the portal, and all of the insects marched toward it, along with several hissing roaches that the team had brought as additional bait.

At first, the leptictids were wary of the portal, but upon seeing the insects, hunger tempered the caution, and the tiny mammals began to amble toward the hole in time. Soon, all but the ones that were picking clean the log had passed into the present.

Suddenly, a creaking noise turned the group's attention toward a nearby tree. There, several weasel sized mammals were making their way down the trunk, toward the portal. Though they occasionally hissed at each other, they never fought, nor did they break out into a run. Instead, they merely ambled toward the present.

"...Are those civets?" questioned Aiden.

"Look more like martens to me," replied Alice.

Tristan, however, knew exactly what they were looking at. "Actually, those are Miacis. These tiny creatures are different from the animals we've seen so far."

Vera merely creaked an eyebrow at her friend. "How?"

"These guys do have a future. Believe it or not, but their line will give rise to all modern carnivorans."

These individuals, however, would not be on the line to modern carnivores, for they were already on their way into the portal.

"Well, that was easy. Now how do we get the rest of the leptictids through?" wondered Aiden.

"We just have to move the log," was Nigel's response. Nodding, the group readied to lift the log...only to find all of the leptictids already standing on it. One of them promptly made a noise.

Then the log started to move...

XXXXXX

In the present, Bob was buys sorting the last of the new arrivals into their holding pens. He was mentally praising his luck that the miacids had taken so long to enter the portal that he'd had enough time to put the leptictids into their own pen, one that didn't have bars that were far enough apart for the civet-like predators to squeeze into. The mesonycids and phenacodonts were already enjoying the park's room service.

Turning toward the portal, Bob wondered if any additional arrives were coming. He got his answer when a large, serpentine, feathery creature began to amble through the portal on its four short but strong limbs. On its back, a group of leptictids were picking away at some bugs, while one of them rested behind the horns on its head. As the creature passed by Bob, he noticed that there was one spot the mammals were avoiding on its back...and on that spot were small, fin-like wings.

Bob stared on for a moment, then sighed. Didn't the park have enough literal dragons already?

XXXXXXX

AN: Yes, I included a marine dragon. This one is about the size of a Halisaurus.

Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!