Shaking off the stiffness of sleep, the beetle began to stir. Joints that were showing the wear of age flexed with what strength they still had as the arthropod slowly came to its senses, with its thoughts soon turning to food.
The beetle was old for its kind – at eight weeks in age, it was nearing the end of its life cycle. Already, it had found a mate, and she had lain eggs in the carcass of a red brocket deer. The passage of its genes ensured, this arthropod no longer had any biological purpose. All that mattered now was satisfying its daily biological needs until its short lifespan finally reached its conclusion.
There were no sources of carrion nearby, though – other scavengers had beaten the beetle to the carrion and fungi it craved. No matter – this creature had wings. Today, it seemed, it would have to fly for food.
Said flight would take if over some of the mightiest animals to have lived.
XxXxX
It was the scent of fruit that awakened Corduroy from his slumber. Shaking off the cobwebs, the hulking mass of fur and flesh made his way to the entrance of the cave, eager to fill his belly.
It only took him a few minutes to find the fruit pile, and soon he was stuffing himself.
Cave bears were roughly the same in size to polar bears, and thus not the largest bears to ever live – that went to the giant South American Short Faced Bear, Arctotherium. Yet the size difference was thrown into sharp relief when one realized that cave bears were not as carnivorous as polar bears – in fact, they were significantly more herbivorous than modern brown bears. While certainly able to consume flesh and bone – indeed, the staff had observed him wolfing down a whole sheep – Corduroy was fine subsisting primarily on plants. That didn't stop them from giving him dietary supplements like those pandas received – he was supposed to get a treat of insects tomorrow, for example. Anything to keep such a large animal active and healthy.
As his stomach slowly filled, the cave bear wondered what today would bring – perhaps he would climb the cedars to look for honey? Maybe he could venture further toward the redwoods to find tasty mushrooms? He could just stay in the snow and dig for roots and burrowed animals. While he had not found the latter at first when he arrived in his new home, many squirrels had rapidly asserted themselves in claiming burrows, giving the bear a nice supplement to his meals if he could be bothered to act.
Unnoticed to the ravenous bear, a strange-colored beetle flew overhead, circling around him, seemingly searching for something. After a while, the beetle seemed to lose interest, and soon it was flying further south, seeking to find whatever it had missed here.
XxXxX
Matilda let out a sigh of relief – at last, she had soothed the itch on her shoulder. Rolling so that she was in a position to stand up, Matilda slowly extended her legs. Only once she was fully upright did she start walking.
As she made her way down to the river, a variety of smells filled her nostrils – with noses comparable if not exceeding those of turkey vultures, tyrannosaurs could track odors over vast differences, helping them locate both prey and carrion to sate their massive bulks. Since her arrival here they had picked up a peculiar variety of smells she had never encountered before, only some of which she had been able to put shapes to. To her surprise, many of them were mammals. Though the mental capacity to ponder the implications of mammals existing that were large enough for an adult tyrannosaur to sate itself upon was beyond her, she was still perplexed to see that the furry creatures were no longer scurrying in the shadows, but grazing and browsing in the open. Stranger still was how some of those grazers no longer fled when they saw her form – many still did, but some stood and prepared to fight.
Nearing the river, Matilda snapped up a morsel she had forgotten to devour this morning – a very meaty cow femur. Crushing and swallowing it in moments, she plodded onwards, finally reaching the river.
Another tyrannosaur waited at the shoreline – a young male. While she had been present when he had first arrived at the park, only recently had she found him truly interesting, as he was now sexually mature and had attempted to court her. She had initially been disinterested, but he had persisted, and unlike with, say, humans, such persistence had paid off. She had allowed him to mount her, and now she carried his offspring within her. In time, she would lay eggs, and then they would work together to raise the next generation. They would not be the only ones – her nose told her that her brother Terence and his mate Jane would soon be parents as well. While she found her brother's presence a nuisance, if he were to have hatchlings, she would tolerate their presence so long as they did not endanger her own brood – a portion of her genes would inevitably be passed on if those hatchlings survived to breed. Not as much as her own offspring, but it was still worth considering.
As she finally lowered her maw to drink, Matilda briefly noticed a vibrantly colored beetle land on the carcass of a frog, eat what few slivers of flesh remained, then begin flying off once again.
XxXxX
The beetle flew onwards, hunger still unsatisfied. Briefly, it passed the high mountain rookeries that the pterandonts used to display for females, taking care to avoid Quetzalcoatlus as well. Special attention was paid to trying to avoid the domain of Smerg, for he was extremely aggressive to outsiders, and left little to scavenge regardless. One day, perhaps, a beetle would manage to get scraps from the hidden exhibit's residents, but this was not that day.
XxXxX
The dome headed water dweller's eyes briefly fell upon the brightly colored insect, but as it flew away, said eyes wandered elsewhere.
This land was so strange – the plants here weren't like any the dome head had seen. Weirder still were the animals – some were reptiles, others therapsids, yet most were far larger than the wading herbivore was used to. Some were long necked (and often long tailed) browsers, while others were horned grazers. There were even several varieties of bipedal carnivores, and how they maintained balance was a question the dinocephalians could not answer.
Most of these thoughts, however, were fleeting for the Tapinocephalus. Their primary concern were always things that could immediately affect their lives. Right now, the most immediate danger was a pair of phlange-headed Styracosterunus, who's dark-backed forms were dueling in the water for control of females. Mating season was still far off, but this duo wanted to prepare early.
Either way, the duel was not something the Tapinocephalus wanted to be part of. So, with adequate haste, she made her way deeper into the water, away from where the dueling herbivores could affect her.
XxXxX
The beetle just barely had time to get out of the firing zone before a burst of mud fell on Martha's fur.
The female mammoth had spent years getting acclimated to the park – a relic of a time when Nigel and the park had been a much smaller venture. Now, she was a fully accepted member of the herd, and soon, she would be more than that – the park's sole other mammoth, Siku, had succeeded in courting her some time ago. Now, she was eleven months pregnant, and before the year ended, she would give birth. Her calf would be the first in several thousand years, and would have to grow up in a world far warmer than the one Martha had come from.
At least there was mud to keep cool with.
XxXxX
The striped arthropod briefly stopped in a clearing to search for corpses or fungi, only to find the male Carnotaurus charging at it. Its wings barely managed to carry it out of the angry abelisaur's attack range.
The beetle pressed southwards. It seemed it would need to get closer to the coast to find food.
XxXxX
The beetle was only on her neck for a moment before Gertie twitched, irritated by its landing. It had found a sensitive spot on her neck, as otherwise she would have ignored its presence. Indeed, her attention right now was focused on the long-necked mammal before her. She had no way of knowing that this creature was called Paraceratherium, nor that this one lived separate from the others because it was a mature male, which did not join herds in adulthood. All that she could comprehend was that it was in an exhibit like her own, and it was browsing on a short tree.
Gertie was used to mammals being small things – burrowers, termite eaters, and gliders were some examples. Facing competition for food from a mammal was a novel experience.
So it was that Gertie failed to notice the beetle fly away, only briefly stopping in one of the Allosaurus exhibits, were it tried to eat a piece of meat only to be snapped at by a female Allosaurus jimmadseni. The green-colored carnivore missed the arthropod, which continued on its way. If she had bothered to watch this, Gertie might have recognized that she had seen this Allosaurus before – it was female who had been limping due to a badly damaged middle toe.
XxXxX
No matter how much she tried, Corazon was unable to catch the beetle as it flew over her exhibit. None of her kind were – the beetles had long since learned how high the tiny dinosaurs could jump, and made sure to stay out of range when possible. If the beetle had been with more of its kind, then perhaps they could take advantages of the insects' numbers to pick off some of the outliers, but with only one beetle, that was an impossibility.
The beetles were one of the few new food sources the coelophysoids had found that didn't require them to leave their exhibit- some would always come when the keepers restocked the carnivores' meat feeders. The drive to find food and reproduce overrode their safety instincts. Those were the times that dinosaurs would feast, but they were getting fewer now – the beetles were learning, becoming more cautious. They were still treats, but treats that adapted.
Snorting in annoyance, Corazon turned away from the edge of her exhibit – maybe Buster had found something interesting she could chew on.
XxXxX
The beetle flitted over the red backed rauisuchian, who expressed her displeasure with a loud bellow. This, in turn, put the dicynodont herd on alert, which a ripple effect that only ended when Abrams slammed his club tail on the ground, causing synapsid and archosaur alike to grow silent. None of that concerned the Dimetrodon, though – instead, they merely huddled up in a small cave, safe from the harsh midday sun. Used for both display and thermoregulation, their sails made them easier to rouse in the early morning, but also made them vulnerable to overheating. Thus, they often sought shelter during midday, either in bodies of water or shade. This strategy served them well in the Permian, and would serve them well now.
Though, the staff still needed to figure out how to make the shade viewable to guests.
XxXxX
The beetle flew on and on, passing over a great many creatures – Wooly Rhinos, American Lions, Triceratops, Edmontosaurus, Incisivosaurus, Bathornis, Toxodon, Crassigyrinus, Deinosuchus, Parasaurolophus, and others, and even a special building house recently hatched Titan Beetle grubs (a miracle for modern zookeepers, but hardly something noteworthy for Prehistoric Kingdom), until it had ended up as the southern shores of the park. Only then did it at last find what it desired.
It came to a halt far up the shoreline, where in the distance, a tiny colony of Hesperornis were visible, dragging themselves back into the sea to feed. On a nearby rocky outcropping, a Mosasaurus was sunbathing as it was cleaned of parasites, while in the open ocean, icthyosaurs, plesiosaurs, and pliosaurs surged after the fish they craved. The beetle's landing brought it dangerously close to a large, long snouted amphibian, but the beetle paid it no mind – the Cosgriffius was already full.
By chance, a grouper had been washed in by the tide, and now was stuck in the remnants of a pool, beyond the reach of the marine scavengers. Seizing its chance, the beetle crawled over to the carcass and dug in.
In the distance, a bipedal armored form watched the feeding occur. Though its eyes could not make out the details, the Scelidosaurus could tell that several fish had been left behind on the shore. Right now, only the insects were feeding, but it would not be long before other hunters arrived for their share. And so, after taking one last look at the dead fish, the armored herbivore began making its way back to its herd.
XxXxX
AN: And here we go!
So, now on to one thing I've really wanted to do: a spin off of Welcome to Prehistoric Kingdom done entirely from the animals' point of view!
Read and Review at your leisure! This is Flameal15k, signing off!
