Back at the park, Ted was busy examining the Websteroprion exhibit. Owing to the worm's large sizes, they'd been deliberately given a rather large tank so that they had plenty of room to burrow in, and were provided with plenty of food for each meal.
Problems, unfortunately, had already started to appear - the smaller worms were, for the most part, easy to care for, but the larger ones were starting to get rather aggressive. In particular, they seemed to be very possessive of the large underwater mushrooms in their exhibits. Why eluded Ted, but whenever a keeper tried to move in to clean the mushrooms of dirt or other detritus, a worm would lunge at then, trying to tear them apart. Already, someone had ended up with a rather large gash on their arm, and was being treated both for the wound and for risk of infection. The head of the park's human doctors, Felix Rodman, had given him quite an earful over that injury.
Okay, maybe he was right to chew out Ted for that - he could have just used an ROV to attempt detritus removal, as the park did have ones for just that purpose. That being said, those were rather expensive to repair. Most importantly, he still wasn't sure why the worms were being so aggressive - it just didn't make any sense!
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Meanwhile, in the Morrison Forest, Nigel and Tristan's friends had linked back up. Of course, Bob was still missing, so the team had a new priority - find him, then find Tristan. Already, they were homing in on the portal devices both were carrying.
"Think Bob will be fine when we get to him?" asked Violet.
Vera merely frowned at her. "He's a tough man. Sure, he's old, but he is tough. I think he'll be okay when we get to him."
Deciding to leave things be, the team continued on with their march, watching as they did so for any signs of Bob or more animals to rescue.
Given how many dinosaur species were known from the Morrison, it wasn't long before they found some.
As the team came upon a small lake, they found a herd of small sauropods taking a drink from the water. Nearby, a group of carnivores also enjoyed the water, though they were mindful enough to keep their distance from the herbivores. The leaf eaters were clearly diplodocids, though interestingly enough, they appeared to have flaps of skin covering their neural spins. Said flaps were either red or blue, with the juveniles having ones that were mottled green. As for the predators, some were green in color, others grey-brown. These predators also lacked any cranial adornment, indicating they were megalosaurs.
"..Why do those sauropods look so much like Amargasaurus?" questioned Lucas.
Marcus was the quickest to answer. "I think those are Suuwassea, one of the earliest amargosaurs. As for the predators, they're most likely Marshosaurus. My guess is that hunter and hunted have declared a truce to quench their thirsts."
The team quickly shared a glance, creating an unspoken agreement - these dinosaurs were going back to the park with them.
Carefully, Tai and Violet began setting up the portal, while Alice and Vera got to work baiting in the giants. The diplodocids were offered ferns, while the megalosaurs were enticed with fish. Megalosaurs were most closely related to the spinosaurs, and plenty of megalosaur fossils had been found with the remains the marine animals in the stomach regions. Sure enough, the carnivores were indeed interested in the fish, only holding back from launching a full on assault due to unfamiliarity with the humans. The diplodocids, having no reason to fear the bipeds, were far more easily coaxed into the portal, and shortly after that, Vera managed to lure the megalosaurs into the temporal anomaly, along with, much to her surprise, a group of crocodilians that Nigel quickly identified as Diplosaurus.
As the last of the goniopholid crocodylomorphs disappeared into the portal, Tai deactivated it and began packing up the sticks. He only got halfway back to the trucks before the sound of giants on the move stopped him. Turning with his siblings toward South, he watched as a family of sauropods began to march by the lake, completely ignorant of the humans. These were clearly another type of diplodocid, but these were far larger than anything the group had yet seen, and brown in coloration.
This was the mighty herbivore known as Barosaurus, and this group was on the move.
Instantly, the team boarded into their vehicles and began to give chase, determined to return these magnificent animals to the present.
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The female Diplodocus let out a relieved cry as she rejoined her herd. Safety in numbers was important, especially since she was not yet fully grown.
Nearby, she could make out the shape of the male allosaur, as well as the strange biped that had been by the predator, now riding on a strange creature with rounded legs. She could also make out more shapes in the trees - small carnivores that were following the herd, trying to snap up herbivores that used the giant dinosaurs as giant meat shields.
This herd had been the females' family for years, ever since the fire that had forced her and her siblings out of the forest. Out of five juveniles, only three had survived the blaze, and it had forced them out onto the plains, leaving them dangerously exposed. It was a miracle that none of them had fallen prey to carnivores before they had found the herd. Now, she and her two brothers had grown quite well, and for the female, this year would be the first time she would be able to breed.
Of course, for the moment, reproduction was sidelined in the face of sating her hunger, an imperative that always needed to be recompleted.
Onwards the herd traveled, searching for food. It was not long before they were joined by another group of herbivores - Camarasaurus, the most common sauropod in the region. Strength in numbers was vital for survival, and the more sauropods there were, the more eyes were available to watch for predators.
Soon, many species were joining sauropod caravan - Brachiosaurus, Apatosaurus, Brontosaurus, even a group of the titanic Amphicoelias marched with her herd, using numbers and bulk to deter possible attackers, whose numbers had also grown - she could now see several more Allosaurus, as well as Ceratosaurus, Saurophaganx, and even a few Stokesosaurus, though the latter of these creatures posed no threat to her. All of them were waiting, hoping, thatone of the giant sauropods would fall behind and make itself an easy target.
Yet the herd continued on without showing any sings of weakness, and soon came upon a large estuary - the last landmark before the major part of their migration.
As the caravan of flesh marched onwards, they caught sight of the forms of demolished trees and torn up plants, as well as the sight of many waterlogged corpses. The area had had the misfortune of being hit by a tsunami a week earlier, utterly massacring the animals and plants that had lived there. The few that had survived now walked around, utterly unsure what to do. Juveniles who had outlived their parents huddled together, confused and scared, while predators feasted on the corpses that were not too deep in the water to feed on.
Even those carcasses were not left undisturbed. Huge shapes moved in the water, tearing into the floating masses of flesh. The tsunami had come from the Sundance Sea, which had slowly been receding for millions of years. The part of the sea that still remained was home to many prehistoric predators, such as ichthyosaurs, pliosaurs, and plesiosaurs. Several of those animals were in the estuary, feeding on the bloated remains of dinosaurs.
Out of the corner of her eye, the female diplodocoid watched as the strange biped came to a halt on the shoreline, before pulling out two strange sticks. A moment later, a blue light appeared, and the biped vanished through said light, before returning with a strange object. Using the object, the biped cruised out to the nearby floating carcasses, all occupied by predators, and put strange, shiny things on them. Mere moments later, more blue lights appeared, causing the carcasses to disappear, and with them all of the carnivores feasting on their remains.
What a strange creature that could do all of that.
The feeling of curiosity soon vanished, though - the female sauropod had too much to worry about to concern herself with these odd lights. In particular, a female Allosaurus was starting to size her up. This one was of the same species as the one that had caused her to rejoin her herd, but while that one was a male and had a broken arm and toe, this female only had one really obvious injury - a lower jaw that did not properly line up with her upper one, likely the result of the lower jawbone being broken and healing improperly.
Despite its injury, though, it was clear that the female carnivore was a dangerous hunter.
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Sighing, Tristan shoved the jet ski into the portal and praised his luck. It wasn't every day that you got the opportunity to rescue Megalneusaurus, Baptanodon, Pantosaurus, and Tatenectes while going after a herd of sauropods.
As he returned to the ATV, though, he noticed something odd - nearby him was the carcass of a stegosaur. That was not surprising in and of itself, considering all of the death surrounding him, but what was surprising was that the carcass was only being picked at by insects - no dinosaurs or pterosaurs were trying to devour it. This was especially odd because most of the other carcasses had been picked clean, yet the scavengers refused to touch this one, instead taking up positions to pursue the herd of sauropods.
Why was this carcass so special?
Confused, Tristan approached the corpse, watching idly as beetles burrowed into it. He stopped when he saw the beetles begin to fight each other, wondering why the insects would be so interested in fighting, and why they were fighting at all.
An answer soon came when a large beetle suddenly crawled out of the carcass and leapt at him. Surprised, Tristan held out his hands in an effort to defend himself, and ended up catching it with his open arms.
When he realized the insect was not able to free itself from his hands, Tristan began looking the beast over. It resembled a normal beetle, but was the size of a goliath bird eating spider. Actually, that was an understatement - it looked be the size of a terrier. Additionally, it had mouthparts resembling a staghorn beetle's signature 'horns', even though it was clearly a carnivore.
Before Tristan could ponder more about this, a rustling sound turned his attention back toward the carcass.
The beetles, for the most part, had stopped fighting.
Now, they were headed toward him. Somehow, he knew this wasn't a good thing.
As the human raced back to his ATV, the beetles continued their advance, while in the forest, several small hunters stared on at him, wondering what he was doing.
Why had the biped caught the killer beetle? They always knew to step on it, then burn the trails.
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AN: Read and Review! This is Flameal15k, signing off!
