5,000,000 Years Hence - The Amazon Grasslands.
We were trekking through a very thick grassland and it was blistering hot and dry. The grass was six feet tall and it was an amazing spectacle.
Aylene: This grass is really tall!
Me: (Grunt) This grass is also on a very strange location.
Lana: Where is it at J.D.?
Me: Believe it or not Lana this grassland was once the lush Amazon Rainforest of Brazil.
Everyone gasped.
Lincoln: This whole grassland was once the Amazon!?
Lori: How did it literally go from a huge rainforest to a really tall and scorching hot grassland?
Me: The Ice Age Climate had some part to it.
In a clearing I form a holographic orb and it showed the Earth.
Me: Here's the Amazon Rainforest as it is in our time. In 5,000,000 years the forests will be replaced by grasslands and the Amazon River will still be here. Ice Age Climates are very dry and as a result the Amazon Rainforest died out and was replaced by vast grasslands. Only parts of the Amazon River have any forest at all. But because the climate changed really fast, the forest died out very quickly. It only took a few thousand years for it to happen. A mere blink of an eye in the timescale of evolutionary terms.
Lincoln: That is really strange.
Lola: It sure is. We were at the Amazon Rainforest in our time and it was a beautiful place.
Lisa: Indeed. It was a lush tropical environment teeming with all kinds of life.
Laney: It sure was. This is a major change for the Earth.
Me: It is but we don't know if this will happen or not.
Nico: That's true.
May: Are there any animals left here?
Me: There are. But because the forests died out that fast, most of the animals that we've seen couldn't survive the change because they were far too dependent on the ecological structure of the forest. Let me show you.
We go to a nearby clearing and in the trees were awesome monkeys.
Laney: Are these monkeys?
Me: These creatures are Babookaris. They are descended from the Uakari monkey.
Aylene: What are Uakari Monkeys?
Me: They are those monkeys with the red faces and they live in the Amazon.
Aylene: Oh those monkeys.
Lana: These monkeys are amazing.
Lola: They sure are.
Lori: These monkeys are literally descended from Uakari Monkeys? Amazing.
Lisa: Very interesting specimens.
Me: Yep. And they have a similar lifestyle to several of the primates we know in our time. They can use tools like Chimpanzees. Chimpanzees use sticks and poke them into termite nests to eat the insects. Very genius method. Babookaris form tightly woven baskets out of sticks and twigs that trap fish in them from the rivers that are still here.
We saw the Babookaris take a spherical basket made of sticks and twigs out of the water and a member of the troop was showing a youngster how it's done.
Lincoln: That's really amazing.
Laney: I've always been very fascinated by the behaviors of monkeys and apes.
Lisa: Affirmative elder sister. The ways of primates have always been a very fascinating feat for all Homo Sapiens.
Lola: This is an interesting deal.
Aylene: It sure is.
Ed: Cool.
Eddy: Double D would love learning about all of this.
Lincoln: He sure would.
Me: Monkeys and apes have been a very important part of our evolutionary chain for millennia.
We hear a screech and we went to check it out and we saw in the tall grass a group of giant birds with headcrest feathers.
Lola: Look at the size of those birds!
Laney: These birds are huge!
Lori: These are literally the tallest birds I've ever seen!
Me: These are not just any birds guys. These birds are called Carakillers and they are a descendent of the South American falcon, the Caracara.
We are walking by one up close and personal.
Lisa: What a magnificent specimen.
Aylene: It's a big bird. How tall do they get?
Me: They are 8 feet 2 inches tall.
Lori: That is literally a tall bird.
Laney: What are those feathers on their heads?
Me: Those feathers on their heads are what they use to communicate with each other.
Lincoln: That is so cool!
Nico: It is. These birds look like future velociraptors.
Me: That's exactly right Nico. This is the coolest part of the Carakiller. On their arms they have this really cool sickle shape claw that is reminiscent to the dinosaurs. A prominent part the creature has at the end of its arm. Another creature that had a claw similar to this was the Deinonychus from 115 million years ago in our time.
Lana: That is so cool!
Lola: It sure is.
May: How did the Caracara become like this?
Me: Well over the course of millions of years in terms of evolution, it lost the power of flight completely and it grew taller and faster. Flight is an expensive feature for any bird in the animal kingdom. So over the course of time it exchanged flight for speed. They can run at over 45 miles per hour. Caracaras spent most of their time on the ground and like their ancestor they still do spend their time on the ground.
Laney: That's amazing.
May: It sure is. I can't believe that a little bird like the Caracara would become a tall giant like the Carakiller.
Lola: Me neither.
Nico: It's an amazing creature.
We then hear a strange rattle sound and we go to the source of it. We saw another type of Rattleback.
Lola: Is that a Rattleback?
Me: It is. But this is a Grassland Rattleback. It's much different than the Desert Rattleback we saw in North America. All creatures have to be diversified in terms of the Animal Kingdom.
Lisa: That's correct. Every creature in the animal kingdom has to be diversified whenever it comes to certain species.
Lori: That's interesting.
Me: They are really territorial and whenever two of them meet they shake their tough scales around. The loudest of them wins and the loser retires gracefully.
Laney: That's amazing. What are these spines on their sides?
Me: That's a clever method they have. Whenever they are attacked by a predatory creature, they dig themselves into the ground with them and they stay there really well. Muscles at the base of the spines lock them in place. Making it almost impossible for anything to remove it from its spot.
Nico: Boy that's tough. Only an explosion from underneath it would do it.
Me: Exactly.
We go back to the clearing and we hear the roar of thunder in the distance.
Lincoln: Was that thunder?
Me: It was. Look out there.
We saw a nasty thunderstorm building out in the distance. Lightning was striking powerfully.
Me: Believe it or not guys, although the world is in an ice age, the Tropical Summer is still warm and brings powerful thunderstorms. Sometimes they bring rain to the area. But oftentimes at the end of the Summer here the grass is tinder dry.
Lori: What happens by then?
Me: They don't just bring rain sometimes.
Thunder roared wildly and lightning flashed and struck throughout the storm and then we saw something horrific happen. We saw lightning strike the grass and in less than 30 minutes, the grass was set on fire.
Me: They bring Fire!
Laney: Whoa!
Lincoln: So grasslands burn?
Me: That's right. One of the most terrifying features of a Grassland habitat is that it burns. A number of events in our time can cause it. But mostly here it's caused by Lightning Strikes. Like I said when I showed my Fire Powers, Fire is not only destructive but it's really good news for other creatures. Storks in our time are drawn to the edge of the fire to feed on insects or small mammals that were flushed into the open by the flames. Fire also fertilizes the ground with ash and the cycle of vegetation begins anew.
Lori: That's amazing and horrible at the same time.
Eddy: This is amazing.
Ed: It sure is.
Laney: This fire is really scary.
Me: It is.
We stood and watched as a huge billowing wall of smoke was going into the sky and we saw the flames spread across the land at a fast pace. In less then 4 hours, we saw the flames torch 2,000 acres.
Lincoln: These fires spread very fast here.
Me: Oh yeah.
We then went to our next destination.
Continues in Part 9