An Armored Tank's Day
Summary: Taking place 66 million years ago in the Hell Creek formation, Montana, an old Ankylosaurus starts eating, drinking, and sleeping. During this time he'll encounter many creatures that he interacts with throughout the day.
Cast: Ankylosaurus(Focus), Acheroraptor, Alphadon, Basilemys, Avisaurus, Thescelosaurus, Pectinodon, Sphaerotholus, Chamops, Denversaurus, Didelphodon, Leptoceratops, Ornithomimus, Torosaurus, Potamornis, and Tyrannosaurus rex.
In the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, on Level G in the Otis Pavilion, there is a small pen with a Desert Tortoise inside standing idling still. As Thomas is sitting on a chair next to the pen.
"Reptiles, a family of animals that have been around since the Late Carboniferous. They came in many species from Crocodilians, Lizards, Snakes, Turtles, and Tortoises, like the Desert Tortoise. The State Reptile of California. The shell of the tortoise is its Armor which forms most of this animal's body made of mostly keratin. They can retract into their shell at the first sign of danger, and provide a large space for their lungs and efficient thermoregulation, an important adaptation for life in the desert. Armor comes in many forms in the animal kingdom. None are quite extraordinary and bizarre than this one." After Thomas explained, he brings out a model of an armored dinosaur in his hand. "Ankylosaurus"
"This was the armored tank herbivore dinosaur that roamed North America during the Late Cretaceous. They were covered in armor plates, or osteoderms, with bony half-rings covering the neck, and had a large club on the end of their tail. This armor would be useful against predators like T. Rex along with its club tail can be used as a weapon. But what kind of dinosaur was it in life? What was its life like? Did it have to fight off predators on an everyday basis or was it very peaceful?" Said Thomas. As the screen fades into black.
. . . . .
The sun rises over the newly forming Rocky Mountains over a floodplain forest. This is Montana, the Hell Creek Formation, 66 Million years ago. It was a hardwood forest mixed with a deciduous and evergreen forest filled with laurels, sycamores, beech, magnolias, and palm trees grew. Ferns and moss grew in the forest understory along evergreens like conifers, ginkgo, bald cypress, and cycads. The sun's rays enter through the gaps of the first canopy shining on a pile of fallen logs.
Suddenly, one of the logs started to move as an eye opens from the head. The creature stood to reveal an armored dinosaur, an Ankylosaurus. This male is heavily armored with osteoderms over his body including his eyelids. Although he can't see very well, his sense of smell is efficient. The Dinosaur starts to walk off to start his day.
The first order of business is to eat and drink, he first arrives at a standing creek as the ankylosaur dips his head down to drink from the water. In the water, a loon-like Hesperornithe bird called Potamornis swims underwater in search of fish prey.
The Ankylosaurus decides to walk down a ravine and stops to see some ceratopsid dinosaurs coming out of their burrows on a side of a dirt cliff called Leptoceratops. The scout grunts giving the 'All clear' to the herd as they came out of their burrows including a few mothers with young. After letting them pass the ankylosaur follows them. Then a flock of Ornithomimus arrived as they ran down the ravine, these ostrich-looking dinosaurs were pecking the bugs disturbed by the clubtail's feet sticking around for protection from large predators. Then they arrive at a clearing to feed on ferns and bushes, the ankylosaurus uses his broad beak, he even uses his long prehensile tongue to grasp the leaves from the branches of the bush.
The Ornithomimus were approaching an island in the middle of the river as the mating season has arrived they started digging nests and gathering ferns, leaves, sticks, and stones as nesting material for their clutch of eggs some later arrivals might resort to thievery from their neighbors.
The Leptoceratops herd was feeding on the fruits from the bushes and cycads and flowers slicing them with their sharp parrot-like beaks and chewing the plant matter while a sentry stands on his two legs as a lookout.
The Basilemys turtles were munching on water plants near the shores of the river as a nearby herd of Torosaurus was browsing. A small mammal with the body of an otter and a head of a Tasmanian Devil came onto a log to feast on a fish it caught. Two young bulls wanting to go up the ranks were head-butting clashing their horns at each other until the dominant bull comes in and bellowed at them to stop to remind them who was in charge.
A flock of Thescelosaurus has come to drink from the river little did they know they are being stalked by an Acheroraptor hiding in the ferns. As it crept closer and closer and then the dromaeosaur leaps out, but the Thesecelosaurus ran off into the river and swam off. Not all hunts succeed and he must try again. The Thesecelosaurus swam onto the Ornithomimus island and proceed to be chased off by the territorial Ornithomimus as they hissed and spread their wings at them and had to swim towards the other side.
As the days progressed, the lone male Ankylosaurus finds a burnt stump scorched black from a fire that happened months. He is munching off charcoal from it to help neutralize the toxins from the plants that could be poisonous. Then another ankylosaur arrives, this time it's a nodosaur called Denversaurus, unlike Ankylosaurus, she has spiked osteoderms, is smaller than him, and lacks a club tail. The ankylosaurus isn't bothered by her and allows her to join him munch on charcoal.
The afternoon came and the Ankylosaurus was approaching a hill and sees a boulder to rub against to scratch the inaccessible parts of his body. He looks down to see a small herd of his kin. Two young males were circling each other and bellowed at their opponent. This was the mating season and these females have gather to establish their rights to mate with the females. They slammed their club tails to the ground to intimidate and they proceed to wrestle. They start by pushing each other from the sides, followed by ramming each other in the head, and finally swinging their tail clubs at each other to damage and knock down their opponents. The osteoderms are often damaged and broken off during battle, but they'll heal. The old male Ankylosaurus was once part of this event in his prime, but now he is old and lost to a new challenger. His scars and broken tip osteoderms prove it.
There are some areas that he cannot reach and so he needs companions to help him. Small lizards asking on the boulder noticed the Ankylosuaurs, they are Chamops and they are also courting. The brightly colored males bobbed their heads and push-ups with their bodies to attract the females, they can be territorial, and these gatherings consist of a dominant male in which he is allowed to mate, a dozen females, and subordinate males often around a tree or this boulder as the center of the dominant's male territory. Some of the lizards crawl onto the Ankylosaur's top body and start feeding on insects latched to his skin, and some of the subordinate males start practicing their courtship displays in hopes of one day overthrowing the dominant male. After the lizards left, a flock of enantiornithine birds called Avisaurus perched on the ankylosaurs' bodies like with modern-day oxpeckers, they pick off the parasitic bugs on their backs.
The sun begins to set just as the Ankylosaurus was feeding on some berries from a bush joined by a small herd of Sphaerotholus, small dome-headed dinosaurs. Then suddenly, the sentry bellows a warning call and they ran off. The Ankylosaurus smells the air and detects the scent of a large carnivore just as the theropod appeared. A Tyrannosaurus, a formidable predator. The Ankylosaur bellows and slams his club tail as a warning, normally T. Rex would never go after a fully armored adult Ankylosaurus unless it's desperate. Luckily, the T. Rex wants no part of this and walks away in the other direction.
Night has fallen over the Cretaceous landscape, and an opossum mammal called Alpahdon comes out of her nest cavity hole in the sycamore tree to start the night finding bugs. The Ankylosaur walks down the path and he sees four bright golden eyes as they got closer and belonged to a pair of troodontid dinosaurs, Pectinodons on the hunt for mammals and small dinosaurs. The Ankylosaurus walks up the ravine as he sees the Leptoceratops returning to their burrows. Then he finally makes it to the fallen log pile and lies down to sleep next to it his brown skin will help camouflage him with the surroundings as the gray osteoderms and club tail look more like rocks as he sleeps for the night. This has quite been An Armored Tank's Day.
Trivia/References
-The Ankylosaurus tongue, sense of smell, and club tails used for fighting for mates are based on relatives like Pinacosaurus, Euoplocephalus, and the recent paper of Zuul.
-Acheroraptor hunting the Thescelosaurus is based on a similar scene from the Last Episode of Walking with Dinosaurs with parts of the Ankylosaurus fight and Torosaurus fight also from the series.
-Leptoceratops burrowing, standing on two legs, and chewing is based on real research.
-Ornithomimus island and courtship and thievery behavior are taken from Prehistoric Planet.
-Chamops lizard behaviors are based on Western Fence Lizards and Rainbow Agamas and the lizards eating bugs off the back of animals is inspired by BBC's Africa which involved the lizards on the backs of lions and seen again on the backs of Tarbosaurus in Prehistoric Planet.
-Ankylosaurs eating charcoal is based on real-life research from Borealopelta and seen in Prehistoric Planet.
-Ornithomimus sticking close to protection to the Ankylosaurus and eating bugs disturbed by his feet is inspired by ostriches and cattle egrets.
-Avisaurus picking bugs off the Ankylosaurs' back is inspired by oxpeckers.
You can suggest ideas for stories for the other creatures, so you can suggest dialogues, scenes, and natural or speculative behaviors for the prehistoric animals.
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The Next Story is The First Flight.
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