The Original Victorian

Summary: Set in the Isle of Wight, UK, and 130 million years ago in the Wessex Formation. It's a coming-of-age story of a young male Iguanodon who grows up to become the herd leader. He faces threats from predators and a rival.

Cast: Iguanodon(Focus), Mantellisaurus, Yaverlestes, Baryonyx, Polacanthus, Hypsilophodon, Valdosaurus, Eotyrannus, Neovenator, "Vectispinus", Vectiraptor, Caulkicephalus, Istiodactylus, Helocheyldra, Anteophthalmosuchus, Eocamerotus, Opolosaurus, Wightia, Aristosuchus, Calamanosaurus, Yaverlandia, Riparovenator, Ceratosuchops, Brighstoneus, Brodiechelys, Caulkicephalus, Egertonodus, Enaliornis, Eobaatar, Goniopholis, Hulkepholis, Koumpiodontosuchus, Loxaulax, Nicorhynchus, Vectidraco, Vectisuchus, and Wesserpeton.

The setting shows the famous dueling dinosaurs, a Tyrannosaurus, and a Triceratops statue outside the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles with Thomas Tran appearing behind them.

"Dinosaurs are the greatest and most successful animals ever walking the earth. They inspired the imagination and wonder of the human mind through museums, movies, theme parks, and other forms throughout popular culture. We wouldn't have all this without the help of a man that changed history forever. Back in the 1800s, a man named Richard Owen, an English biologist, comparative anatomist, and paleontologist, coined the term of a new clade of animals, "Dinosauria". Richard, analyzing fossil remains found throughout the UK believed they belong to a new kind of animal, which he named a Dinosaur. Its name means "Terrible Lizard '' believing they were large lizards and if he were alive, the dinosaurs would be very different than he would imagine. Warm-blooded, active, intelligent, and successful creatures, and thus dinosaur paleontology was born. Among the fossils named into this new clade was the first dinosaur ever named Megalosaurus, a theropod, Hylaeosaurus, an ankylosaur, and the first named herbivore dinosaur." He brings out a cast model of the dinosaur. "Iguanodon, the first herbivore dinosaur, and second dinosaur after Megalosaurus to be discovered. It was once thought the spike was thought to be the horn on its head like the rhinoceros iguana, but the spike was its thumb. It would have used its thumb spike to grasp for plants or a weapon against rivals and predators. Who knows what they were used for and what kind of a dinosaur was Iguanodon?"

. . . . .

The Isle of Wight, Great Britain, in the early Cretaceous. Europe was still covered with oceans with many islands dotting them and this is one of them in what would become the Wessex Formation. It was a semi-arid, Mediterranean, chaparral, and shrubland habitat, but also consisted of coastal lagoons, braided rivers, and freshwater floodplains. Conifer trees dominate the landscape, and tree cover is thin and concreted in waterways, and the ground cover was constant of ferns, cycads, early flowering plants, and horsetails, it was home to many dinosaurs, and the most common dinosaur was Iguanodon. These ornithopods were the most successful dinosaurs ever to exist; their generalist diet of feeding from up high in the trees and down below from the ground and eating different plants was the secret to their success as they diversified into different species and spread across the globe.

In a clearing is a nesting colony herd of female Iguanodons tending their nests and their newborn offspring. One of the mothers Iguanodon tends to her brood of soon-to-be hatched eggs. A nosey juvenile Mantellisaurus was sniffing the eggs only to be driven by the protective mother and eventually, the eggs hatched and one of the young is a male. He stays in the nest with his brothers and sisters often playing with one another while their mother fed them plants that she dropped on the nest as they feasted.

The young iguanodon had some company as a small mammal came out of its burrow searching for some bugs, a Yaverlestes stopped by as the baby Iguanodon looked at the mammal curiously. The mammal scurries off in search of food away from the nest. Other mammals were searching for food in the undergrowth like Eobaatar and Loxaulax, multituberculate mammals. Resting inside the fallen rotten logs are salamander-like Wesserpetons, these salamanders live in damp and moist places like this to keep out of the reaches of the sun only coming out at night to feed and breed.

A few weeks pass the young male is now out of the nest and now a juvenile youngster, he is curious and clueless about his surroundings. As he plays with the other youngsters, the adults gorge themselves on eating the ferns, horsetails, and leaves from the conifer trees with some rearing up and grasping the plant with their hands and spike thumbs.

Some of the young Iguanodons including our male come upon an armored dinosaur, an ankylosaurid nodosaur. A Polacanthus who are often seen with Iguanodon herds. Its body is covered with armor plates and spikes, which consist of a large "pelvic shield" or "sacral shield", which is a single fused sheet of dermal bone over its hips, four horizontal rows of larger keeled osteoderms per side, surrounded by smaller ossicles and the tail and the front of the body including the neck featured two parallel rows of spikes, one per side. This armor is the perfect defense against predators, but although unsure with young iguanodons. As they look at the armored dinosaur curiously bellowing and running around it, the Polacanthus isn't feeling bothered by their presence.

Other dinosaurs live alongside the iguanodons, the small swift Hypsilophodon these small two-legged dinos are like the gazelles as they feed on the ferns and the scraps of leaves from the adult Iguanodons along with small insects and animals. Their pointed heads were equipped with a sharp beak used to bite off plant material, much like modern-day parrots. Being light-weight, minimized skeleton, low, aerodynamic posture, long legs, and stiff tail — immobilized by ossified tendons for balance make them efficient runners to outrun predators.

There are even medium-sized Valdosaurus, Mantellisaurus, and Brighstoneus, feeding alongside the iguanodons, ironically, all five of them, including Iguanodon are related as they are part of a family of dinosaurs called ornithopods. They can walk and stand on two legs mostly when running for some species, but most of the time, they walk on all four limbs in the case of Iguanodon.

Valdosaurus was a dryosaur iguanodont, then there was Brighstoneus which was recently discovered and named while Mantellisaurus was more lightly built, it is known from many complete and almost complete skeletons. It was named after Gideon Mantell, the discoverer of Iguanodon. Most fossils attributed to Iguanodon belong to Mantellisaurus.

The young male and the youngster approached the river to drink and splash around. There they meet some of the aquatic and semi-aquatic life forging along the shores feeding on the aquatic water plants and reeds. These are turtles known as Helochelydra and Brodiechelys. Turtles have been around since the Triassic period and come in different forms. The osteoderms on Helochelydra's legs indicate these turtles spent most of their time inland feeding on vegetation, and their black color scales and scutes of their shell would have helped absorb and retain heat from the sun for this cold-blooded reptile, making these turtles more active than others.

Fish inhabit these waters from Ray-finned bony fish to cartilaginous fish like the horned hybodont shark swimming at the bottom of the river. These sharks were successful starting from the early Jurassic evolving to the end of the Cretaceous and some sharks like Egertonodus can swim and live in both freshwater and salted water environments. Some sharks do so today some genus of sharks live exclusively in freshwater and the Bull shark can swim between freshwater and saltwater environments. Their kidneys recycle the salt within their bodies and special glands, located near their tails, aid in salt retention. They have spines projecting from their dorsal spines to protect them from larger predators. Its varied teeth dentition would have allowed it to opportunistically exploit a variety of food sources; sharper teeth would have been used to catch slippery prey, while the flatter teeth probably helped them crush shelled creatures.

Soaring above the rivers are pterosaurs like anhanguerid pterosaurs like Caulkicephalus and Nicorhynchus which swoop down to catch fish. Swimming below the surface is this flock of semi-aquatic birds called birds are the oldest known hesperornithines using their lobed feet to swim and kick in the water to pursue their fish on the shores and swimming with their eyes and nostrils above the water is a bask of primitive goniopholidid crocodilians known as Anteophthalmosuchus along with other Crocodylomorphs like Goniopholis, Hulkepholis, Vectisuchus, and the small Koumpiodontosuchus. They are a common sight around rivers, lagoons, and waterways, posing a danger to young and small dinosaurs. But the young iguanodon will learn there are bigger threats that lurk in these waters when there is beauty in the world, there is also danger.

A bigger young iguanodon was pushing the young male engaging in a wrestling match as the young male tried his best to fight back pushing his opponent and trying to overthrow him. But the bigger juvenile is no push over and splashing creates ripples attracting attention. Then a Crocodile head emerges from the water and grabs the bigger juvenile iguanodon with its jaws dragging it to his death. This caused the young iguanodons including our young male to run back to the safety of the herd as they hid in the great bodies and long legs and arms of the adults. The young male had witnessed death in Wessex firsthand.

The culprit wasn't a crocodile, but a Baryonyx, the British cousin of the larger famous sail-back Spinosaurus. The Baryonyx was swimming in the water finishing its meal and snapped at a swimming Anteophthalmosuchus who managed to avoid the jaws of the spinosaurid. Baryonyx was the first theropod dinosaur known to have been a piscivorous, fish eater, as evidence of fish scales have been found in the stomach. Its elongated snout was covered with sensory pore receptors to sense its surroundings and finely serrated teeth and possessed dense bones that would have allowed it to dive underwater that dived after aquatic prey. Its long fish hook is a large claw, about 31 cm long, which would have been used to help grasp and slash at its prey. This carnivore would snatch a pterosaur or even young Iguanodons.

A week has passed, and our young iguanodon has grown bigger by the minute feeding on horsetails which are herbivore superfoods. These plants grow very tall and quickly like grass and it's full of nutrition for herbivores like Iguanodons. Then the young male witnesses a solitary aggressive adult male wanting to take over. Then the herd's leader appears, and the young iguanodon's father bellows at his rival to leave, but he refuses then the two Iguanodons start to fight as they circle each other before standing on their hind legs and wrestling with one another. The two adult males fought by wrestling with each other, biting, pushing, and shoving even stabbing each other with their spike thumbs. The spike thumbs other than grasping can be deadly weapons with the males' spike thumbs being larger and thicker. The Leader continues to deliver the deadly blow until the rival has had enough and is chased out by the leader. But it wouldn't be the last time the young male would see the rival.

The season has changed with the dry season approaching. During the hot, dry summers, many chaparral plants have hard, waxy leaves, which help the plants conserve moisture. As a way to reduce water loss due to evaporation, it reduces the plants' water demands and allows them to live in more arid sites. For Dinosaurs and other creatures, it's a different matter.

A Yaverlestes was running from a small raptor called Ornithodesmus. Ornithodemus was initially believed to come from a bird and subsequently identified as a pterosaur, but it's now considered a dinosaur, a dromaeosaur. It's a hunter of small prey like mammals, but luckily the mamma hides in its burrow leaving the raptor to find prey elsewhere.

Suddenly, shadows flew over the raptor and the sound of new arrivals echoed across the landscape. The dromaeosaur runs off as it was in the path of a herd of sauropods, the herd consisting of Eucamerotus and Oplosaurus. These long-necked sauropods were the giants of the Wessex feeding off leaves from the tall trees that not even Iguanodons couldn't reach. Flying above them and landing on the trees to feast on the leaves and fruit, a flock of unusual crested pterosaurs known as Wightia, a tapejarid pterosaur. Although recently discovered, It would have been an omnivore feeding on fruit and small animals and their crests were for display purposes to attract mates.

It was that day that the young Iguanodon's Spikethumb bellows to let the herd know it's time to move. The Iguanodons soon started to gather together as one as they are safe in numbers as it was time to move to new pastures. These migration patterns have been passed down for generations the Iguanodons bellowed as other iguanodon herds and solitary bulls joined the crowd and that even includes the rival male who sticks to the edges. This would be the young males' first migration even though there will be dangers, luckily he has the safety of the herd he might survive.

Soon other dinosaurs including the Hypsilophodon, Mantellisaurus, Valdosaurus, Polacanthus, Brighstoneus, Opolosaurus, and Eucamerotus join in the mass migration and even the small mammals join in as the Yaverlestes climb up the young male iguanodon and hitch a ride on his back. The herds migrated through the dry landscape and walked along the shores of the reaches of the island. Some of the herbivores stopped eating seaweed that contains salt and even lick the salt-encrusted rocks and logs.

The herd arrived at a freshwater lake inland as they stopped to drink. But little did they know they are being stalked, a medium-sized raptor walks by and scouts the herd for weaknesses. This is a Vectiraptor, just recently described. This dromaeosaur was a formidable predator especially if there are others around hiding in the bushes and shrubs. A full-grown adult Iguanodon would be dangerous, but a young iguanodon or a Mantellisaurus would be perfect prey. The Raptor runs in front of the herd followed by others to stir confusion, the adult iguanodons bellowed and reared up showing their spike thumbs. This confusion causes the herd to run as a Valdosaurus is separated from the herd as the rest of the raptors close in on their prey. One leaps out from the bushes and tackles the Dryosaur pinning it down with its toe claws including the famous sickle claw while the Vectiraptor ends the Valdosaurus's life with a bite to the throat. Small carnivores like these scavenging pterosaurs and theropods like the Aristosuchus and Calamosaurus wait patiently until the dromaeosaurs finish their fill.

During the confusion, the young male has run far away into the underbrush and is now separated from the rest of the herd. Now his next objective was to find the herd with him alone; he is in grave danger as little does he know he is being stalked. His bellow calls haven't been answered, which could be a beacon for predators. The juvenile male stopped in his tracks for he had heard something with the Yaverlestes sniffs in the air while clinging to his back. A golden eye peers from the bushes as its body is camouflaged with the surroundings as it stalks its prey. The attacker came out, luckily the young iguanodon saw it narrowly avoiding the jaws and started running. The Predator was a Neovenator, the "New Hunter", a Cretaceous species of Allosaurid. The apex predator of this environment. The young iguanodon runs as fast as he could with the Neovenator behind as he goes under and goes above bushes, logs, and fallen trees. Then he sees a river and jumps into the water to swim across, losing his pursuer. The Neovenator gives up and goes to find prey elsewhere.

But it's not over yet Spikethumb continues to walk and sees the footprints of the herd. Then he stood and saw an old face, the Baryonyx fishing in the center of the river alongside others of its kind. It was also joined by other spinosaurids including Riparovenator and Ceratosuchops fishing on the shallows of the river using their snouts to detect fish. Until their discovery, Baryonyx was considered the only spinosaurid in the Wessex, Riparovenator, and Ceratosuchops was only just recently discovered. As the Young male walks along the shoreline, it stops and grunts seeing something bigger as it runs off, One spinosaurid dwarfs all three of them, although haven't been named, this is the White Rock Spinosaurid informally known as "Vectispinus." This spinosaurid was the largest Spinosaur ever to roam the Wessex and he would have made a meal out of that young male Iguanodon, but today, he is getting his teeth cleaned. These small pterosaurs are known as Vectidraco, they clean between the teeth for scraps of meat of the Spinosaur they get a meal while the carnivore gets a clean bill of health., although the Vectispinus would snatch one if it wanted to, luckily he's not in a hungry mood.

As the young Iguanodon searches for his herd leaving the riparian river channels to the shrubland. He is being stalked by a different predator hiding among the foliage until three of them burst out of shrubs. The Young Iguanodon sees some medium-sized theropods running toward him before the rest come out of hiding; they are a pack of Eotyrannus, the early European relatives of the T. Rex. A pack of them can take down a young iguanodon like him, so our young male chooses to run for his life with the pack in pursuit. The pack's goal is to tire their prey into exhaustion leaving it weak to fight back.

Just as the Eotyrannus was gaining on him, out of sheer luck, the young Iguanodon spots the herd and hurries towards it. Once there, his mother charges in to defend him as the rest of the herd gather in defense. Outsized, the Eotyrannus pack backs off to find smaller easier prey. The iguanodon has been reunited with his mother and the herd and learns not to get lost from the herd.

Time passed as the young Iguanodon grew up as he followed the migration paths every year from wet to dry seasons until he became a young adult. Although life was easy for him, a sudden tragedy strikes because the rival male has returned to challenge the Iguanodon's father for leadership of the herd. The two behemoths fought wrestling and shoving one another along with stabbing each other with their spike thumbs. But the battle was too much, the old leader was getting weaker and weaker by the minute, until the stabbing blow, the rival stabbed him in the throat and pinned him down. He is too weak to stand and get up; he has lost the battle and his life. The Rival bellows in victory now as the leader after he departs, the young male stood by his dying father's side mourning him, and nudging his snout, he bellows in sadness and anger. Soon the scavengers arrived from the small Aristosuchus and Calamosaurus to pterosaurs like Vectidraco and Istiodactylus. Istiodactylus was a large pterosaur with a 4.3 to 5 meter (14 to 26 ft.) wingspan. It was a carnivore feeding on small animals but scavenged on the dead like vultures, they wait for the large predators to tear up the skin and flesh first, this includes some old enemies from the Vectiraptors, Eotyrannus, and the Neovenator as they waited in the distance to move in to feast as the young male leaves his father's body to the scavengers.

Time has passed and the adult male has taken a liking to one of the females, but the rival male doesn't tolerate him and drives him off wherever he sees them. One day, it goes way too far the rival bellows angrily at him to go away, but the Adult male Iguanodon refuses suddenly a battle breaks out. As the two males circle each other this was a battle for leadership for the herd. The two males begin to wrestle with each other, biting each other on the neck, pushing and shoving, and stabbing with their spike thumbs. The Adult male refuses not to give up on his rival that took down his father. He continues stabbing and biting his rival until the stabbing blow!

The rival falls to the ground as the winner returns to his herd and bellows in victory, the rival barely gets to see the Neoventator, Vectiraptors, and Eotyrannus packs waiting on the hill as they descended to finish the rival's defeat. By now he is now ripped and torn skin and flesh with reeking smelly meat and spilled organs as the scavengers feasted on the rest of the remains.

The Adult Male leader is now the leader of the herd with the female by his side as his mate, one breeding season, they produced a clutch of eggs only seven hatched, and three survived. The Yaverlestes on his back also started his family with a mate and five offspring. He now leads the mixed-species herd on its yearly migration, the Eotyrannus and Vectirpator packs feasting on a dead carcass scattered in the male's path as he is now bigger than they are and no longer vulnerable to them. Upon crossing the river, the four species of Spinosaurids snatched fish from below the water, the Male Iguanodon rears up and bellows to intimidate them and to let the herd pass, and the Spinosaurids respond by making a path for them.

But there is one foe left to challenge, as the herd browsed the ferns and leaves of the vegetation, a sudden rustling in the foliage as a large theropod bursts out, the Neovenator. It's going after the Iguanodon's young, The Adult Male Iguanodon charges in and stands in the way of the predator to defend his offspring as the Neovenator hisses in frustration. The two large dinosaurs fought

and wrestled as the Iguanodon stabs with his spike thumbs while the Beoventator slashes with his three-fingered claws and bit the sides of the Iguanodon with his jaws. The fight continued as they neared a cliff, the male Iguanodon was getting weak, but just as the Neovenator was about to take a bite out of him the edge of the cliff was breaking underneath its feet. The Neovenator fell to its death while grabbing the iguanodon with its jaws by the flanks, but it let go and fell to its death as the Iguanodon held on and climbed. The Male Iguanodon looked down to see the dead body of the predator before returning to his herd.

The Adult Male Iguanodon watched over his herd as his offspring played under the feet of the sauropods, chasing the Hypsilophodons, or bugging the Polacanthus. Then he sees the vegetation becoming dried. It's time for the migration to begin. He bellows to the herd as it is time to move. As the mixed-species herd of Ornithopods, Sauropods, and ankylosaurs walked on the seaside with the male Iguanodon leading the way, this will all disappear and they will be forgotten lost in time. It won't be soon in the early 1800s when the first dinosaur fossils would be discovered by humans and they will be remembered as the most successful creatures ever to walk on this earth.

Trivia/References

-The herd beach and raptor attack scene are from Walking with Dinosaurs Episode 4, "Giants of the Skies."

-The Yaverlestes hanging on the iguanodon's back and Neovenator and Iguanodon are based on the final battle scene from one of my favorite Disney Movies, "Disney's Dinosaur."

Olmagon's Artworks.

-The Baryonyx snatching an Anteophthalmosuchus is based on the artwork from the 30-day dinosaur challenge, "Day 1."

-The young iguanodon scared off by the Vectispinus and it being cleaned by the Vectidraco pterosaurs is based on -the artwork, "Europe's Biggest Predator" and partially from the Jurassic World Dominion: Prologue.

-Baryonyx snatching the baby iguanodon is based on the artwork "Crossing With the River Beasts" and based on the study that Baryonyx had denser bones.

Speculative Behaviors/Fossil Evidence

-Dinosaurs and pterosaurs like Wightia, Riparovenator, Ceratosuchops, and Brighstoneus were recently described back in 2020 and 2021 while the White Rock spinosaurid informally known as Vectispinus was known back in 2022.

-The Small and Large Herbivores hanging out for protection from predators and feeding alongside each other are based on Earth's herd Herbivores like wildebeests, zebras, and gazelles.

-The Wesserpetons' behavior is based on modern-day salamanders and the Egertonodus's ability to live in freshwater is based on bull sharks and other freshwater shark species.

-The Iguanodon fighting scenes are based on elephants, Babirusa, and Elephant seals.

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The Next Story is "Besano Riveria" focusing on a young female Nothosaurus as it explores her Triassic Italian coastline home.

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