Spiny the Dimetrodon sniffed around the paddock, in search of food. At about four feet long, he was only a juvenile – too small to stake out a place at the front of the fish pile every day alongside the larger adults.

In order to avoid competition for resources, juvenile Dimetrodon occupied slightly different niches from the adults – hunting small amphibians, fish and insects, as well as scavenging off the corpses of other predators. In order to broaden their resource availability, the juveniles could also pursue a niche entirely inaccessible to the larger, more cumbersome adults – they could hunt for prey in the trees.

Marks of this arboreal lifestyle could be seen all over Spiny's body – to make moving in trees easier, Spiny's sail was half the size of an adult's, his tail was slightly more mobile than that of an adult and his claws were still curve for gripping. Even now, he was still a good climber.

Anyway, he was searching for food – leftovers from the fish pile earlier today, smaller fish in the Dimetrodon pond or a small lizard, insect or one of the strange furry creatures that would periodically dart into the paddock in search of food. However, rather sadly, there was nothing – he snarled in disappointment.

Out of the corner of his eyes, Spiny suddenly saw something small and green dart past him. He backed up, startled, before he moved forward, stalking the small shape; this might be a good meal. Soon a small, green head popped out; it was Larry.

The petrolacosaurus had escaped from the Carboniferous Dome earlier in the day – everyone had been too distracted by the crassygrinus nearly pulling one of the keepers in with their morning meal to notice that the petrolacosaurus had slipped out of his tank again. Exploring the dome he had gotten as far as the door to the dome, before following a keeper out of the door. He had been exploring the park for the past couple of hours.

Spiny looked at the new creature for a minute before he snapped his jaws at it and pounced. Larry dodged him and scurried out, with Spiny in hot pursuit. The chase continued for a good while before Larry darted through a gap in the fence, which was barely large enough for Spiny to squeeze out of, meaning that he got stuck halfway. After several attempts, Spiny managed to squeeze his back half through the gap. Once he had got through, Spiny scanned the air for his would-be prey and, seeing Larry, began to chase him.

The chase continued for several minutes, with Larry managing to keep one step ahead of his synapsid pursuer, before Larry climbed over a fence post and down into a large paddock. Spiny continued in hot pursuit, his slightly prehensile tail and curved claws meaning that he could easily climb the fence pole in pursuit of his prey. Noticing Larry by a corner in the fence, and with no means of escape, he advanced towards the small diapsid. As he moved closer, he licked his lips – this was going to be delicious. Suddenly, he heard nostrils clearing behind him… and turned to see an unfathomably large, red-scaled, bipedal creature looming over him hungrily.

In his readiness to pounce on his prey, Spiny had noticed the Torvosaurus too late.

Spiny went rigid with fear at the sight of the large theropod looming over him. Larry took Spiny's moment of terror to flee, immediately followed by Spiny, with the Torvosaurus pursuing the small Dimetrodon – Larry was too small to be a worthwhile meal for the gigantic theropod, but Spiny was just large enough to be a good snack. Eventually, Larry climbed up one of the fence posts, with Spiny in hot pursuit, as the large theropod, too big to climb, snapped at Spiny, with one bite coming inches away from biting off Spiny's tail.

After he had shaken the hungry theropod, Spiny started sniffing around for Larry again, eventually regaining his scent. Following Larry's scent, Spiny went into a large building. As he went through the building, a thousand strange sights, sounds and scents blasted his eyes, ears and nose. However, he had only one scent on his mind; Larry's.

Eventually, climbing up a wall and running along the barriers, he saw Larry, on the other side of a sunken pit. Tensing, Spiny jumped, getting ready to pounce on the little Petralacosaurus. However, Spiny had misjudged the distance – the gap was actually too wide for him to jump. Spiny only had time for a single hiss of surprise as this realisation hit him – rather sadly, this realisation hit him in mid-air, and he plummeted several feet vertically to the ground.

Fortunately, Spiny had landed unhurt- something had broken his fall. Unfortunately, the something that had broken his fall was a black-and-orange amphibian, roughly as big as he was. The irritated amphibian forcibly moved out from under him, shoving him to the floor, and glared at him with an angry expression.

A disoriented Spiny had barely any time to regain his bearings from the fall when the amphibian suddenly bellowed and whipped Spiny in the side with his tail. Getting up, Spiny hissed, whipped his tail from side to side in a threat gesture and attempted to swipe at the amphibian, who charged him, headbutting him in the chest and knocking him to the floor.

Righting himself, Spiny turned to look at the amphibian and, deciding that the fight wasn't worth it, climbed on a nearby branch and out of the paddock and ran as fast as he could away from the tank. He made a mental note to avoid that kind of amphibian in the future – anyway, where was Larry? He was still hungry.

Following Larry's trail, Spiny came to a stop some distance away and looked around, both to get his bearings and see if he could find Larry's scent. For the first time that day, he had a surprising bit of luck - he saw Larry again, standing on the top of a pole. A pole that Spiny could easily pounce to the top of. Eyes narrowed, Spiny licked his lips, tensed and pounced to the top of the pole in preparation to snap up the small diapsid…

And collided face-first with the Hell Creek crocodile underwater viewing window.

You see, Larry and the pole he was on had actually been standing behind him. Spiny's kind, whilst intelligent for their time, had not evolved to the point where they could recognise their own reflections. Watching Spiny fall to the ground, Larry remained in his safe position on the top of the pole. All he could do was just sit and wait – he was safe here. He could afford to stay.

Uninjured from his collision with the viewing window, except for his dignity, Spiny fell to the ground, where a staff member would eventually find him, dazed on the floor and take him back to his paddock.

This had not been his day.

(Cue Looney Tunes end music)

T-t-t-that's all folks!

If you enjoyed this (and I enjoyed writing it), don't worry – my intention is to make Spiny and Larry a recurring feature. They'll sort of be our version of Sylvester and Tweety or Wil. E. Coyote and the Road Runner. This was the idea I had with their PE counterparts (Larry is Lubbock) – but ended up vetoed. There will be more and they will be filled with slapstick comedy – at poor Spiny's expense.

The amphibian Spiny landed on (and who beat him up) was Newter, by the way.