Dinosaur Hunter

by Steve White

  Alexi sighed and lowered the rifle. These Torvosaurs would be off limits. Still, it would hopefully provide us with a front row seat to a potentially interesting encounter between two of the Morrison’s major predator species. Different habitats and different ecological niches meant they rarely cross paths so this was indeed a wonderful opportunity.

  Even if we never fired a shot.

  With a northerly breeze, the Allosaurs didn’t need to see trouble coming. The three adults turned as one and sniffed sharply. The largest rumbled out a short, concise growl and the chicks, dozing with full bellies, immediately clustered around the legs of the nearest female. They didn’t know what we knew, didn’t know exactly what was coming, but even with the chicks they seemed unwilling to abandon the carcass. They had eaten plenty, even if not their fill, and wouldn’t need to eat again for days, but they had many little, greedy mouths to feed and if they could hang on to it, the carcass would be an ideal short-term answer to their needs.

  The females became agitated. They sniffed and roared, while pacing back and forth, the gaggle of chicks rushing back and forth, trying to keep up with their anxious mothers. And while the Allosaurs were distracted, the running crocs and pterosaurs seized their chance, returning surreptitiously to feed.

  ‘There,’ said Alexi. His binoculars were raised and he pointed south.

  The Torvosaurs were indeed impressive. We both reached for our cameras.

  The female was leading. She was bigger than the male and her spotted and dappled hide, better suited for their more regular forest and woodland home, made her very striking out on the sparse fern prairie. The male trailed, his bright suite of colourful display markings on his huge head almost looking like the fiery go-faster decals of a drag racer. Around him, his brood of chicks, older-looking than those of the Allosaurs, taller and more elegant, but their down ragged with age. They were also fewer in numbers, which was, no doubt, as much attributable to the rate of attrition as to the Torvosaurs’ smaller clutch sizes.

  They did not make a bold approach, choosing instead to slow and circle off to the right, which put them on a collision course with us. It was a heart-stopping moment as they came striding towards us, even the young, legs more stately than gangly, having the elegant tread of a secretary bird.

  Alexi lifted the Ruger off the tree and gestured with his head that we move behind the cover of the tree roots. I didn’t need telling twice and while I felt no compulsion to take the safety off the shotgun, my thumb wasn’t a million miles from it. I took deep calming breaths as the Torvosaur family began to tower over us and the female was close enough to us that when she finally replied to the roarings of the Allosaurs, it shook needles from the Araucarians and dust from their bark. It was one of those sounds you didn’t just hear but felt and I shuddered with the thrill of it.

  Beside me, Alexi calmly took photo after photo. The Pink Team must have been watching the footage from our head cams but kept silent. I imagined the crew of the Victor clustered around the MFDs [multi-function displays] and felt a strange sense of satisfaction. This was, after all, why we had come to the Jurassic.

  The encounter turned into something of a Mexican standoff. Both parties wanted the carcass but with chicks to tend, neither side seemed willing to get into a fight, not even the usually verbose and aggressive Allosaurs. If it was to be war, the sides were roughly balanced; the Allosaurs were a little smaller and less robust than the Torvosaurs, but there were three of them and they were more aggressive.

  The contest, instead, became a roaring one, both predators thundering away at each other so loudly it made me squint and cover my ears. I could hear the crackle of feedback on our mikes.

  This went on for a quarter of an hour and it was finally the Allosaurs who blinked, one of the females leading the chicks away to the north-west while the other two made a great show of noise and posturing, as though reminding the Torvosaurs that this was not a retreat but a withdrawal. Then, they too turned about and departed.

  Calm followed. The scavengers that had been scattered by the confrontation came slinking back, including now a kind of long-legged, well-armoured Sphenosuchian croc of a type we had not seen before, later identified as Macelognathus. It was the biggest type of these running crocodiles and was certainly impressive, terrorizing the smaller types.

  The Torvosaurs set about the carcass, the parents working one of the forelimbs, ripping at it until it came away from the Sauropod’s body with a crack I usually associated more with felling trees than disintegrating bone.

  The leg was for the chicks, who fed upon it noisily, squabbling and fighting, while the parents dined on the offal and guts, the male’s bright colours swallowed by a stew of semi-digested plant matter from the Apatosaur’s split-open stomach.

  We enjoyed the sights and sounds for a while, taking pictures and shooting film, until finally Alexi turned to me.

  ‘What say we head back and get the camp set up?’ he asked.

  I shrugged. ‘Sure.’

  I checked in with the Pink Team. ‘We’re looking to return to the campsite and get set up.’

  ‘Do you want a pick-up?’ Miller asked.

  I turned to Alexi, who was packing up his Ruger. ‘Let’s walk.’

  ‘Really?’ I said. The sun was climbing high and the temperature was soaring with it.

  Alexi shrugged. ‘We can be back in time for lunch. Besides, the exercise will do us good.’ I took this to mean this would really be our first chance to do a real walking safari in the Morrison. So far, it had been mainly short trips to hides and rides in the Victor. We hadn’t had any real opportunities to ‘experience’ the Jurassic.

  We checked the map. The ground was pretty open with no deep forest to contend with. A steady walk, the trip would take little more than 45 minutes.

  ‘Pink Zero One, Jurassic,’ I called. ‘We’ll walk, if you don’t mind.’

  ‘Standby,’ called Miller.

  A minute or two passed then the comms clicked. ‘Copy, Jurassic. We’ll cover you as far as the camp, then we’ll head back to the FOB.’

  ‘Copy, Pink Zero One. Flamingo out.’

  Miller clicked the receiver twice to acknowledge receipt of my message.

  Alexi and I checked the shotguns, took a drink then shouldered our Bergens and set off.

  We stayed in the shadows as we left the Araucarian stand, not really wanting to attract the attention of the Torvosaurs but, their bellies already swollen, we needn’t have worried.

  We still had plenty of time on the rebreathers although the strenuous exercise of walking in the late Morrison morning with full packs reminded me to keep an eye on mine and I reminded Alexi to do the same.

  ‘Stop fussing,’ he said and smiled. The Ruger was slung across the top of his Bergen.

  Our trail took us southwards and we soon found ourselves enjoying the company of mixed herds of Camptosaurs, Dryosaurs and Othnielosaurs. Pterosaurs sat, wings folded, on the backs of the bigger Camptosaurs, the biggest we’d seen, belonging to an eland-sized species travelling in a mixed herd of females and a single male, and their shaggy young. They were joined by the smaller type, the females in their wet season greens, their stripped markings narrower than the bigger type. Gaggles of the little Dryosaurs and even littler Othnielosaurs weaved their way through the bigger Ornithopods.

  Despite our being roughly the size of a Coelurosaur and just as bipedal, the Camptosaurs seemed unconcerned by our presence and we found we could get quite close to them before they turned jittery and shied away, honking and braying, the pterosaurs flapping up and away in a whistle of soft leathery wings but then gliding back down to settle once more on their mobile roost who quickly returned to grazing the ferns. Around them the Dryosaurs and Othnielosaurs scrabbled for roots and tubers, the latter not afraid to snap up any insects, larvae, grubs or worms that their excavations uncovered.

  The herds were heading roughly in our direction so we fell in with them. The big Camptosaurs stirred up other creatu
res, lizards darting out from under their stately tread, Nanosaurs ducking back into their burrows when the shadows of the Ornithopods passed.

  We felt safe, sure that the ever-watchful eyes and noses of those on guard duty would warn us of trouble. Still, it came as no surprise when I got a call from the Pink Team.

  ‘Flamingo, you’re a little too deep in that herd and we keep losing you in the trees.’

  The gunship was right. The occasional conifer had given way to thicker woodland and increasing underbrush. There were dense stands of cycads and tree ferns, copses of Araucarians and towering conifers.

  ‘Copy,’ I called.

  ‘Can you bear west, it’s a little more open there, little less populated.’

  Alexi cut in. ‘Pink One Zero, you worry too much.’

  I took a compass reading and indicated with my hand where we were heading. For all his bravado, Alexi still nodded and tacked to his right. He even picked up the pace.

  It was about then that I noticed the wounded Dryosaurus. It was a male, his usually upright back mane hung limp to one side, the colours waning. His head and tail were hung low and the wound on his flank I took to be crusted in dried blood was actually black with flies. When his ribs twitched, the flies burst into the air and I saw that the wound was fresh, a long gash bright with blood.

  ‘Alexi,’ I called and pointed.

  He turned and looked.

  ‘Could be something, could be nothing,’ he said and walked on.

  I was still standing watching the Dryosaur when suddenly everything felt wrong. Around me, several of the Camptosaurs stopped browsing and rose on to their back legs. They looked about and the largest male gave a warning honk. Around me others began trotting past on their hind limbs, not galloping but agitated. Alexi either didn’t see or didn’t care. He kept on striding away from me.

  I called his name.

  He turned as Dryosaurs and Othnielosaurs suddenly bolted, some kangarooing in high jumps, their manes high, as they gave sharp calls. They were scared.

  The Camptosaur chicks clustered about the female guards, some rising to look about.

  Then, they all turned in one direction, to the south, where Alexi had his shotgun in his hands. Camptosaurs thudded past and although I was no more than 30ft from him, I kept losing sight of him.

  ‘Jason,’ he cried and over the Pink Team channel I heard Miller calling, ‘Guns, guns, guns!’

  ‘What is it?’ I cried.

  But already the Camptosaurs were slowing and settling. Nothing big, I thought, or they’d be stampeding. But the smaller Ornithopods were still anxious, some fleeing, others freezing, jogging a few steps then freezing again, looking south.

  I started to run towards Alexi, calling his name. It would have taken just seconds to cover the distance but that was all the time it took for the Coelurosaur to come charging out from behind a herd of the giant Camptosaurs. It was as long and lean as one of the Dryosaurs and it took me a second to realize what I was seeing. There was a heart-stopping moment when I thought it was going for Alexi but then the wounded Dryosaur was there and the Coelurosaur bore down on it.

  It jinked hard to the right and ran straight at Alexi.

  I called his name once more as he brought the shotgun up to his shoulder and fired.

  Even a baton round would have deterred the Coelurosaur but the round went wide. I could hear calm voices on the comms saying there was trouble and they were right.

  Maybe it was something in the way Alexi moved that made the predator suddenly change his focus. Maybe it was his strange shape. Maybe it made him look wounded or slow, but whatever it was, it – a male Tanycolagreus they told me later, long after I was past caring – charged.

  Alexi fired off another round that hit the Coelurosaur in the shoulder. It screamed but its jaws struck him in the face at the same moment as he fired again, uselessly, into the air.

  The predator swung its long neck and short head to one side, powerful enough to lift Alexi off his feet. He was swung to the ground and the Coelurosaur grabbed him by the shoulders.

  Some part of me knew I only had one shot. The gunship might well have been on its way, but this predator was too small for its cannon and it was now ‘danger close’ – a ludicrous term under the circumstances.

  It was down to me. I dropped to one knee and focused down the iron sights. Alexi wasn’t calling my name any more. There was just a strange whining and gurgling. I waited for the space between heartbeats, my finger on the trigger, but the Coelurosaur was thrashing about and it wasn’t like I was shooting targets, even like shooting a deer. It was like tracking a fast-flying mallard.

  Finally, it stopped moving.

  I lined up on its armpit, the angle where its shoulder blade met its humerus.

  I fired.

  It was a perfect shot. The solid slug wouldn’t have been stopped by the Coelurosaur’s fragile ribs and it probably blew its heart to pieces.

  The lean, beautiful predator was knocked off its feet and into the dirt. It twitched briefly then nothing.

  Alexi, I realized, was alive and continued to struggle. I ran to him as I heard the sound of rotorblades overhead.

  I was calling his name but he didn’t recognize me. Even if he did, there was nothing he could say. He had no throat to say it with. His blood was soaking into the earth and already flies were landing on it. I did the usual that people do under similar circumstances – similar in terms of dying, that is, not dying after having your throat ripped out by a dinosaur – there was nothing usual in that. I told him help was coming, that he’d be fine, he’d be doing his favourite things soon enough, but the blood was like a garden sprinkler, spurting out and pooling. There was, I realized, a part of the Jurassic that would be forever Alexi.

  The wounded Dryosaur watched me briefly as I tried to apply pressure to Alexi’s neck, but already, the fountain had become a dribble and his eyes had rolled over white. I still see those dead white eyes sometimes.

  This is your bloody fault, I thought at the Dryosaur but if he heard he seemed untroubled, trotting away to make room for the landing Victor, too little and way too late.

  How the Tanycolagreus went unnoticed was later attributed to the inexperience of the drone operator at the Front Range FOB; he failed to recognize the shift in behaviour amongst the Camptosaurs and their sudden anxiety; he also failed to identify the Coelurosaurs. However he was exonerated by MHC® after simulation of the incident showed that even experienced operators had a hard time picking out the Tanycolagreus from larger number of herbivores and the thick woodland.

  Alexi Feifer’s family unsuccessfully sued MHC® for misconduct and breach of contract. Feifer’s remains were buried in his native Kiev.

  Jason Hoelzemann is still CEO of a very successful cyber security firm in Singapore. He returned to the Jurassic once more, this time as the shooter, before writing a very successful book of his experiences. He has also contributed funds to science-based expeditions to the Mesozoic.

  THE BAHARIYA FORMATION

  Period: Late Cretaceous

  Age: Cenomanian stage (98–93 mya)

  Present location: North Africa

  Reserve size: approx 2,100 square miles (a little smaller than Everglades National Park)

  CONDITIONS

  By about 100 mya, the supercontinents had begun to break up and the landmasses began to resemble their current state. Africa was further south than where it lies currently, largely below the equator. The Bahariya is situated in what is now Egypt but rather than desert, the area was a vast coastal delta situated on the north-eastern edge of Africa as part of the southern coastline of the Tethys Sea. Global temperatures remained high, although carbon dioxide levels were lower than their Triassic and Jurassic highs; approximately four times higher than current pre-industrial levels. Accordingly, conditions remained distinctly tropical, with distinct wet and dry seasons, the former lasting some seven months. Temperatures averaged 18°C (65°F); during the dry season, temperatures s
welled to 32.2–40.5°C (09–105°F). This is lower than temperatures in the continent’s interior, mainly as a result of the cooling effect of the Tethys Sea.

  GEOGRAPHY AND ENVIRONMENT

  The Bahariya Reserve is located close to the Tethys coast. Its initial appearance is not unlike that of the Florida Everglades or Sundarban Mangroves. It is fed by a large number of rivers, streams and creeks heading in a generally north–south direction.

  The south of the reserve is largely dense forest broken up by freshwater drainage channels and winding rivers that break the landscape up into hammocks. The hammocks are covered pines, conifers, laurels, plane trees, sapindales of many kinds, and kauri trees. The creeks and bayous are lined with old growth cypress, pond apples and stands of horsetails, cattails and scouring reeds.

  The hammocks are often surrounded by pine flatwood wetlands and meadows of fern and palmetto. The hammocks and flatwoods are the habitat of Iguanodonts (as yet undescribed officially); the most common is similar to Lurdusaurus and a sail-backed type akin to Ouranosaurus, both from earlier in the Cretaceous. Also present in large numbers is the small Sauropod, Aegyptosaurus. These are prey for the giant Theropod, Carcharodontosaurus.

  Further north, the rivers and their tributaries break up still further in a network of tidal creeks slowly running through sloughs and mudflats that are largely flooded during the wet season. The erosion created limestone marls that combine with bacteria, algae, fungi and detritus to form a thick sludge‑like coating called periphyton. This covers roots, clings to rushes and horsetails, and forms dense mats that provide a food resource to small fish and invertebrates. The shallow waters surround hundreds of small islands covered in thickets and forests or cypress domes that have their own microclimates. Larger ones can also have freshwater ‘croc holes’. These are burrows dug by large crocodilians such as Aegyptosuchus to escape the worst of the dry season. These freshwater pools provide vital homes for fish, amphibians, birds and pterosaurs, where they see out the year.