Paleofiction thread

[creature386]

Yeah, sure. In animals like close extant analogues, you often don't even have to dig into plot practicalities. You can just pick what the evidence is pointing at.

[dinosauria101]

Ending:
The Megaraptor arrived north at the Zhoukoudian almost in time for the summer solstice. However, something was different. Namely the weather. 
It wasn't warm and sunny. Rather, it was almost chilly, and there was a frost that evening. This wasn't usual at all, so the Megaraptor expected it to just go away shortly. Little did it know that the Earth was entering one of the coldest ice ages ever and that summer snow and cold were not off the table!
The colder weather was getting very dangerous for the Megaraptor, and it was beginning to become too sluggish to fend for itself, despite being homeothermic, because it was used to warmer weather. On one day that was warmer than normal, the Megaraptor decided to steal from a Pachycrocuta clan. And not just any clan, but the clan from which it had first stolen from. The situation was becoming dire, with the Pachycrocutas, sensing the Megaraptor was in a weakened state, beginning their attack. 
Fortunately, being extremely well-armed and about twice as large as a group of opponents does come in handy, and the Megaraptor was still able to hold its own by kicking at, mauling, and biting the Pachycrocutas to death. However, the weather began to shift rapidly, and within moments there was snowfall, transitioning to a blizzard in a few minutes. There were still a few Pachycrocutas left, but seeing as their only concern was that they couldn't find their foe, they simply left. 
Not so for the Megaraptor. Beaten, bruised, and chilled to the bone, it lay down behind a rock, coughed up blood, and collapsed unconscious. This could very well have been the end for it.
It came to back in Turonian South America, with all the memories and experience of what had just happened. Thank goodness it was over!

[creature386]

That was a twist I did not see coming! I honestly expected it to die. Nice ending, I like this "bookends".

[dinosauria101]

So did I, kind of.
The original plan was to have it die, wash out to sea, and become Megalodon food to put a twist on things, but then I thought I'd make it even more unexpected.

[creature386]

I re-read the whole story again and upon second reading, I think the rhino-hunt needs some work. The behavior is not very realistic. Through its ears, the rhino would get a very good sense that the Megaraptor is larger than any predator it has faced before and I doubt most animals would pick fights of which they aren't sure if they will win. Especially since you imply that the other rhinos keep picking fights even after realizing they can't defeat the Megaraptor in a battle.

Fortunately, I think an animal like Megaraptor has the speed to catch a rhino, so you probably don't need to resort to such an explanation.

[dinosauria101]

Maybe I should've thought that through. The speed could work to mend that, however.

I think, tomorrow, I'll compile it all together with the mended errors

[dinosauria101]

Apr 9, 2019 1:21:56 GMT 5 creature386 said:

I re-read the whole story again and upon second reading, I think the rhino-hunt needs some work. The behavior is not very realistic. Through its ears, the rhino would get a very good sense that the Megaraptor is larger than any predator it has faced before and I doubt most animals would pick fights of which they aren't sure if they will win. Especially since you imply that the other rhinos keep picking fights even after realizing they can't defeat the Megaraptor in a battle.

Fortunately, I think an animal like Megaraptor has the speed to catch a rhino, so you probably don't need to resort to such an explanation.

Done

[dinosauria101]

Here's everything, all together.

The Megaraptor had just eaten a good meal, and was now satisfied. It lay down for a rest to digest its food, and all seemed tranquil. Then, an immense volcanic eruption began, only a few kilometers to the west. Megaraptor had never been in danger of the volcano before, as it had been dormant for its entire life. However, that changed, and all the animals in the surrounding area had to run like mad to escape with their lives. Not an easy task for a 1.5 ton theropod with a full stomach! Fortunately for the Megaraptor however, the eruption was some distance away, which gave it a fair bit of leeway to escape. Not everything was in its favor however, and soon it ran into a large cloud of smog caused by forest fires ignited by lava bombs. The smoke burned its eyes and throat and greatly impeded its breathing, the combined effects of which caused the Megaraptor to pass out.
Some time later, it came to in a new location (Zhoukoudian in Pleistocene China). The air was cooler and less humid, there was a mysterious green plant growing straight up from the ground all around, and there were no palm or monkeypuzzle, but rather spiny trees and maidenhair-like (but different) specimens. The Megaraptor got up, dazed from the smog. It did not recognize its surroundings, and as such, decided to take a look around. It could not see anything even remotely similar to the animals it was familiar with. There were heavyset horned creatures (woolly rhinos) drinking from a nearby river, immense hairy creatures with curved spikes in their mouth (woolly mammoths) traversing on the plains, and long-legged creatures with ornate projections on their heads (Megaloceros) in the forest, just to name a few. The Megaraptor did not even know what to make of all the oddities this new location had! It decided to head off into a secluded area, just in case there was any danger (the Megaraptor would become the top predator, but did not know that at the time), and decided upon a cave.
It heard cackling in the cave, saw eye silhouettes, and felt the presence of something else. However, that something else (a clan of Pachycrocuta) felt the presence of the Megaraptor as well, and seeing as they could sense it was many times their size, they dragged their kill elsewhere in their lair, with better lighting but less accessibility so they'd be safer and could see around them better.
The Megaraptor also decided to head off elsewhere, and coincidentally ended up very close to the Pachycrocutas (but accessibility was not a problem for the Megaraptor because of its much larger size). It was a clan of 8, and they had happened upon a dead woolly rhinoceros juvenile. A perfect meal for the Megaraptor. It got close, growled, bared its teeth, and even took control of the carcass directly in order to assert its dominance.
The Pachycrocutas thought their numerical advantage could help them scare the Megaraptor off and as such they tried to fight back. However, the Megaraptor was equipped with the size, weaponry, and ferocity to keep possession of the carcass, and when the Pachycrocutas came close it grabbed one in its maw and mauled it to death on the ground.
The remaining 7 Pachycrocutas retreated, and the Megaraptor roared after them, having asserted its dominance.
The Megaraptor, having found their lair and having asserted dominance over the clan, now has what is essentially a source for free food. However, since Pachycrocuta was a scavenging species owing to its low and heavy build, the Megaraptor's luck would only marginally increase, as it could only eat when the Pachycrocutas found something that was already dead.
As such, it also took to hunting to satisfy its hunger. One such prey item was the woolly rhinoceros, which, even though it was about the same size as Megaraptor, was very dangerous to hunt due to its sharp horn and explosive nature. However, the woolly rhinoceros had a weakness: It used smell more than sight, and as such would not have known what to make of the situation when it caught the brand-new smell of the dinosaur, while the Megaraptor would have no such issue.
This factor came into play during the first hunt, a partial ambush. The Megaraptor was stalking a woolly rhinoceros herd, and chose an individual on the outskirts, blissfully unaware of its presence. It hadn't been paying attention to the other animals in the forest however, and the call of an alarmed Megaloceros begun to scatter the herd. It was now or never! The Megaraptor rushed out at its quarry, inflicting a bite and a slash upon the flank. The rhinoceros turned around to face its attacker and blindly charged at the smell, not knowing that it wasn't quite one of its usual predators.
This allowed the Megaraptor to inflict more major bites and slashes, and that was sufficient enough to allow it to stand back and let the rhinoceros weaken before delivering the killing blow. However, in the future, other woolly rhinoceros began to figure out what the Megaraptor was, and they began to fight back. This led the Megaraptor to try sidestepping and agility, as well as using speed to outmaneuver its foes, which proved to be very successful as it was well equipped to do so, being part of the tyrannosauroid lineage (the most cursorial large theropods). Because of this, the Megaraptor proved to be very adept at hunting woolly rhinoceros. It was also able to catch and kill Megaloceros from time to time, and could even successfully hunt juvenile mammoths at night or with ambush. However, things weren't all peaches and cream.
Winter was coming, and so was the colder weather. This was potentially lethal to a large dinosaur used to a tropical climate, having never witnessed snow or cold before. Not knowing what to do, the Megaraptor noticed all the potential prey items moving off, so it decided to follow them in order to keep up with its food. The Megaraptor noticed that the further they went, the less cold it was, and decided to try its luck by heading further still! Soon, it reached the warmer bamboo forests to the south, where the ancestors of today's giant panda reside, and decided to prey upon them instead. Unfortunately, they were relatively few and far between, and at the end of the winter the Megaraptor was relatively emaciated, having eaten only 1/3 of what it would've usually eaten at other times of the year.
Fortunately, it was spring, and that meant it was safe to head back north to where there was larger prey.
The Megaraptor, at first not sure where to go, thought to follow the weather once again. It headed off until it could feel a slight chill, and eventually, over an overpass and canyon, there were the migrating prey animals some distance away. It would have to remember to come here, as thermal locating was not always reliable. Eventually, it got on track and was headed north. During the summer, it would repeat its usual routine: Hunt Megaloceros, woolly rhinoceros, and juvenile mammoths, and steal scavenged carcasses from Pachycrocuta clans (not just the one it first ran upon). Each fall, it would guzzle down more than normal, then head south to the bamboo forest. And each spring, it would, once again, find its way to the overpass and migrate alongside prey species in order to get lucky and potentially prey on stragglers.
Unfortunately, as was usually the case, things didn't always go according to plan. One year, winter was so cold that temperatures in the southern bamboo forest were comparable to those usually in the Zhoukoudian! This forced the Megaraptor to head even further south, into the tropical rainforest of far southern China. At first, this proved to be a rather easy way of life, the greater one-horned and Javan rhinoceroses present offering about the same amount of food as the woolly rhino, but having less weaponry and no experience made them easier targets.
However, staying in the southern rainforest proved to have its drawbacks as well, namely the amount of edible prey. There wasn't nearly as much as there was at the Zhoukoudian, and so the Megaraptor decided to head back north a tad earlier than normal and head south a tad later than normal. This would have, in theory, worked out just fine - if not for the fact that one of the coldest ice ages on the planet was just about to begin! Fortunately, the Megaraptor did not have to experience it firsthand, but rather noticed temperatures in the rainforest were also dropping, so it decided to stay. A few years later, things had begun to warm up quite a bit, and so the Megaraptor was actually able to head north earlier. However, due to it heading north early, the terrain was very rough, and the Megaraptor sustained quite a few bumps, bruises, and wounds along the way.
The Megaraptor arrived north at the Zhoukoudian almost in time for the summer solstice. However, something was different. Namely the weather.
It wasn't warm and sunny. Rather, it was almost chilly, and there was a frost that evening. This wasn't usual at all, so the Megaraptor expected it to just go away shortly. Little did it know that the Earth was entering one of the coldest ice ages ever and that summer snow and cold were not off the table!
The colder weather was getting very dangerous for the Megaraptor, and it was beginning to become too sluggish to fend for itself, despite being homeothermic, because it was used to warmer weather. On one day that was warmer than normal, the Megaraptor decided to steal from a Pachycrocuta clan. And not just any clan, but the clan from which it had first stolen from. The situation was becoming dire, with the Pachycrocutas, sensing the Megaraptor was in a weakened state, beginning their attack.
Fortunately, being extremely well-armed and about twice as large as a group of opponents does come in handy, and the Megaraptor was still able to hold its own by kicking at, mauling, and biting the Pachycrocutas to death. However, the weather began to shift rapidly, and within moments there was snowfall, transitioning to a blizzard in a few minutes. There were still a few Pachycrocutas left, but seeing as their only concern was that they couldn't find their foe, they simply left.
Not so for the Megaraptor. Beaten, bruised, and chilled to the bone, it lay down behind a rock, coughed up blood, and collapsed unconscious. This could very well have been the end for it.
It came to back in Turonian South America, with all the memories and experience of what had just happened. Thank goodness it was over!



Read more: theworldofanimals.proboards.com/thread/1911/life-before-man?page=5#ixzz5kc1gsHFK

[creature386]

Chapter 1
Fabian licked the last dew off the crumbling horsetail-leaf. It had always been his favorite type of water. It was almost as if the plant’s and the rain’s taste merged to create their own touch. Most importantly, it was always available, even when all the adults gathered around the waterhole. No big Plateosaurus engelhardti would ever satisfy themselves with the water on a plant, no matter how large. Fabian did. At least, he usually did. Not even during this time of the year were they so dry. Fabian was a small Plateosaurus, but not that too small to know about the seasons. He had already experienced the onset of the dry period last time. However, he remembered the last wet period to be, well, „wetter“. It was the period in which he was born, after all. This period, not even half of the hatchlings survived the first weeks. And those who survived would not grow up to be as big as him. This was bad, even by the harsh standards of nature.

A nature which was so similar, yet so different to what is known to us.

Alfred Wegner was not the first to observe that Africa and South America fit together like jigsaw puzzle pieces. What he saw, however, was that they were not the only ones. North America and Africa used to be just a stone’s throw away. North America and Eurasia were even closer, forming a landmass known as Laurasia. South America, Africa, India, Australia and Antartica formed a landmass called Gondwana. Later, these two continents would break apart, but during the Triassic, they established a supercontinent called Pangaea. Pangaea persisted between 335 million and 175 million years ago, an era comparable in length to the dynasty of non-avian dinosaurs.
There are various ways we know this. Many species used to have cosmopolitan distributions. Geological features, like mountain ranges, start on one continent and end on another. We can even measure the current rate of continent movement and extrapolate it backwards in time. Moreover, we know the sea floor sediments formed at different times. Continents are pushed aside when new sea floor is formed between them. Due to the North Pole’s dynamic nature, different sediments show different magnetic fields. If you woke up during a random day millions of years ago, your compass would be unlikely to help you.
If you think Pangaea was a simple geological structure, you are mistaken. In first approximation, imagine a circle spanning half of the globe. Then, imagine the surrounding ocean Panthalassa grabbing into the continent’s heart with its arm Tethys. An arm which today only exists as a remnant called the Mediterranean Sea.
Based on that knowledge, we can reconstruct how the paleo-world looked like. No-one has a full picture of what happened prior to recorded history. The sounds, colors and behaviors of most extinct animals will always remain an enigma. Nevertheless, we can try our best.

Picture Germany 208 million years before you were born. Had borders been invented, it would have been considered a landlocked country. A few million years earlier, it used to border on the Tethys. By the time of the Late Triassic, the big ocean’s arm had already withdrawn as if Pangaea’s center was a hot oven it burned its fingers on. Only that the withdrawal caused the heat and not vice versa. Water regulates the climate and further inland, there is less of it. Fresh clouds run out of breath the further they turn from the sea. The result was a hostile wasteland. At least during the dry period. Disregarding humidity, Germany was closer to the equator where the only seasons were a wet period and a dry period.

During the wet period, lush, green rainforests dominated the landscape. The Gingko trees crowded in, steering the Plateosaurus engelhardti herd on their path downhill. The cycad fronds lashed against the smaller animal’s faces like wet curtains. Under the twilight sky, the mist even obscured the occasional lake. In its sidewards-facing eyes, a Plateosaurus had scleral rings. These are rings of bone did not just guard its eyes, they also illuminated the night like owl-eyes. Plateosaurus was likely cathermal which means it neither preferred the daylight nor the moonlight, it just liked to avoid the midday heat.
Gathering on their favorite trail of trampled stems was not easy for the herd. The largest of them weighed as much as an Asian elephant whilst being longer than an African one. 10 m and 4 t were their record-holder’s sizes. They were about twice as long as their earlier relative Plateosaurus gracilis and quite a bit less gracile. Not even their enormous size preventing them from walking on their tiptoes like a ballerina though.

In the valley, a river plain larger than New York Central Park waited for them. The herd roared joyfully at the sight of the nesting site they had used for generations. An isolated cycad attracted the attention of a female Plateosaurus named Aconia, Fabian’s mother. The cycad would make a good parasol and umbrella simultaneously. Unfortunately, she could not come too close without hearing a roar. A larger female had had the same thought as her. Aconia almost looked like a juvenile next to her, even though the age gap was not too great. Despite their bones indicating endothermic metabolism, Plateosaurus adults had widely varying sizes, much like modern day reptiles. Environmental factors such as food availability played a big role. They could be considered a transitional state between endotherms and ectotherms.
Aconia, barely bigger than a Plateosaurus gracilis, had to give up this dispute.
Other females were more welcoming. If its relative Massospondylus was any indication, Plateosaurus might have been a friend of colonial nesting. Aconia and nine other mothers arranged themselves wide enough so that no-one’s tail bumped into someone’s head. Then, they began scratching the sand with their feet. Even at night, it was surprisingly firm and warm. Heated by the Sun, sand is a natural incubator. There were no guidelines on which direction to scratch in. Had someone continued the nest-lines with a big stick until they met, they would have formed a labyrinth. Aconia produced a clutch of 25 apple-sized eggs. At least her small size meant she did not have to crouch to protect her eggs from the fall. Some of the others had as little as 20 or as many as 30 eggs. Regardless of the number, everyone pushed their eggs to form tight rows half-buried by the sand. Fortunately, the shells were thin enough for the eggs to breathe nonetheless. Aconia put a fern frond over her clutch. Whether by instinct or by personal taste, she arranged her eggs in rows of four. Only the 25th egg did not fit in. Rather than being fully buried like the others, it hung in the threshold between the nest and the plain. That egg was Fabian’s.

Unfortunately, the river plain did not have many big trees. Over the next weeks and months, many females left the nest. Some to eat in the surrounding forest, others to take a nap. Regardless of who left, someone would always watch the nest. A Plateosaurus’ brain was simple. They did not hold elections on who had to do the nightshift. They just did whatever they felt like. Over the breeding season, it all went fine, however. The nest site was well located; in the vicinity of a lake, but far enough to be safe from flooding. It is not far enough from the lake’s predators though.

An innocuous turtle-like creature crawled closer. Nothing that should alarm the sleepy guardian. Only when the sentry took a midday nap did the stem-turtle bear its teeth. A Proganochelys. With its beak-like jaws, this one meter long stem-turtle likely preferred to crush plants. It did not forget its carnivorous roots though. The one egg that refused to fit in the nest caught its attention. At this point, Fabian might have been ready to hatch, but he was was barely larger than a human hand. It would take just one snap to end his life before it even began. The Proganochelys scratched its teeth against its eggshell, but in its clumsiness, the egg slid out of its beak. Bad mistake. This tiny sound was enough to make the sentry stomp closer. From a turtle’s perspective, the Plateosaurus was more of a movie monster than an animal. The turtle returned to its lake. Now, its hunger had to focus on plants or, should its bloodlust turn out untamable, fish.
It was not just the sentry’s appearance that was lucky for Fabian. The very attack of the turtle weakened his shell. He would be the first to hatch. Through his dim inner light of awareness, the outside world was filtered into a blur. Yet his instincts told him to stay where he was. He had no teeth to eat, no hindlimbs to rear up on and no pronating forelimbs to rest on. All he could do was lie in his nest and call for his mother.

For now, this was all he needed to.

[dinosauria101]

I think, for part 2, I'd do a Tarbosaurus transported to Oligocene Mongolia, starting off lost in a sandstorm then finding itself in the new place. Its goal will be to try and prey upon the Paraceratherium, and its foe would be Crocodylus bugtiensis.
Should have a plot ready for tomorrow

[creature386]

I might also add that my semester has just started, so I cannot promise that the second chapter will be ready any time soon.

[dinosauria101]

^Not an issue, I'm willing to wait as long as necessary.

You can generally expect a steady supply on my part, though

[dinosauria101]

Part 1 (of part 2)
The Tarbosaurus had found nothing to eat, and still seemed to be lost among the sand dunes. It could only keep moving despite its great thirst and hunger, for it had no choice.
Eventually, it stumbled upon the carcass of a Saurolophus and happily dug in, relieved for salvation. As it was eating, the sandstorm began. First, it began to impair the dinosaur's vision. Then, it began to impair its breathing. Then, the Tarbosaurus decided it had had enough and moved off to get away from the storm. Unfortunately, it seemed like an endless sea of sand had surrounded it, and there seemed to be no way out.
As luck would have it, however, the sandstorm subsided, and the Tarbosaurus soon found itself back where it was originally. Or so it thought.
There was new, mysterious vegetation, and no signs of animals such as Oviraptor or Adasaurus. It soon came across a pair of Hyaenodon eating a dead Paraentelodon. The pair of creodonts was absolutely terrorized by the presence of the much larger Tarbosaurus, and it was able to administer the carcass without too much trouble.

*I'm running out of time, so I'll add more as needed

[dinosauria101]

What the characters will be based on:
Tarbosaurus: Clashed By Dinosaurs
Crocodylus bugtiensis: Deinosuchus from Prehistoric Park
Everything else, Walking With Beasts

[dinosauria101]

Part 2:
The Tarbosaurus was still rather unsure as to what to make of the new landscape. There were, however, many similarities


I will edit later