Dinosaur Hunter

by Steve White

  Triceratops also experiences broad ontogenic changes; as the horns and shield develop in the very young, the horns rise almost vertically and curve back, while the shield is similarly flattened against the neck. This is largely the result of being small, with threats usually coming from above. This state remains unchanged until sub-adulthood when the animal reaches a size to engage threats on a more or less horizontal plane. Then the horns begin to project forward and the shield rises up to present a more intimidating head-on view.

  OTHER FAUNA

  QUETZALCOATLUS

  A member of the Azhdarchid family of giant pterosaurs, Quetzalcoatlus has a wingspan of around 35ft, presenting an incredible sight when airborne. However, you are more likely to see it on the ground, where it stands taller than a giraffe!

  In essence, this great flier is a Tyrannosaur-sized stork or heron. Its long, stiff neck supports a massive beak somewhat akin to the likes of a very large saddlebill stork. On the ground it moves in a stilted fashion akin to that of a giant bat, on three robust fingers and toes. It can move with surprising speed at a stately gallop, but this is rare. It usually spends its time around watercourses, ponds and, when the ground is firm enough, marshlands. Carnivorous, its main prey is small vertebrates; the type of prey changes as the pterosaur grows. Sub-adults can fish and will take amphibians, small reptiles and mammals and even insects. The adults will generally take anything that can be swallowed down in one; this includes small and infant dinosaurs, the latter forming a major part of its diet during breeding season.

  Populations of Quetzalcoatlus will also migrate north to hunt around the huge nesting colonies of Edmontosaurus and Triceratops. However, they are generalist predators and will take the young of T. rex and even small raptors. (They are quite capable of tackling humans – be warned!)

  Quetzalcoatlus also frequents coastal regions, where it beachcombs and scavenges; it can often be seen following storms, scouting for any marine organism unfortunate enough to have been washed ashore. Scavenging forms a part of the pterosaur’s diet and it will drive small predators from its kills.

  The huge wingspan of Quetzalcoatlus makes it an excellent glider; it can travel thousands of miles and migrations run from north to south with some populations but also into the interior further west. Many nest around soda lakes and watercourses in the interior, while others fly up to the polar regions at the start of spring to make the most of the huge dinosaur migrations taking place.

  Two or three eggs are usually laid in a scraped-out hollow in the ground; both parents attend to the young until they are old enough and big enough to fly. The young are vulnerable on the ground to attack from raptors and young Tyrannosaurs. However, they travel in small flocks for mutual protection. Adults are also social, staying together in mixed-gender groups – a single adult can fall victim to sub-adult and fully grown Tyrannosaurs. However, these groups usually disband during the mating season, reforming only once the adults are free of their parental commitments.

  Quetzalcoatlus snaps up a snake disturbed by the grazing duckbill, Edmontosaurus.

  EDMONTOSAURUS

  The most common non-Ceratopsid larger dinosaur in Hell Creek, Edmontosaurus is a larger and very generalized Hadrosaur, large adults growing up to 40ft and weighing over 4 tons. As mentioned previously, the loss of wetland habitats at the very end of the Cretaceous resulted in the demise of many Hadrosaurs, especially the crested types; as such, the Maastrichtian duckbills are represented almost solely by this species. It is perhaps its generalist physiology and advanced feeding apparatus that allowed it to survive the environmental change, much as Triceratops did.

  Equipped with powerful grinding batteries of teeth and a broad duckbill, it is generally a low-browser and grazer whose ecological role is very similar to modern herbivores such as zebra or bison. As such, its favoured habitat is open woodland, meadows and open prairie. However, it can also be found in marshlands, swamps and coastal wetlands.

  It usually moves in small herds but at the end of winter, Edmontosaurs gather in vast herds that migrate northwards to nest in large colonial sites; the adults can then make the most of the spring growing season. The young grow fast and once they are big enough the herds reform and head south to spend summer on the fertile lowlands, where the aggregations scatter into smaller bands, often including young.

  With Hell Creek being quite near, geologically speaking, to Dinosaur Park, there are a number of dinosaur types represented in both formations that are very similar to one another. These include:

  Ankylosaurus; at 30ft long and weighing over 5 tons, Ankylosaurus lacks the more showy armour of the earlier Euoplocephalus but is much larger; it also sports a similar tail club. Generally solitary, it is relatively uncommon.

  Pachycephalosaurus: The largest of the boneheaded dinosaurs who are named after it, Pachycephalosaurus is also the largest of its family, measuring over 15ft long and weighing nearly 1,000lbs. It is perhaps the most extreme version of the boneheads. The young are flatheaded but their pates are ringed in a crown of spikes and spines. The females keep this crown into adulthood but the males develop a massive bony dome. The microscopic construction of this helmet is, not surprisingly, unusual: it contains cells called fibroblasts; these generate collagen and extracellular matrix, the materials that form the foundation of cellular structures. Looking at male Pachycephalosaurs, this is hardly surprising. The dome is used in intra-species combat, predominantly at the start of the mating season. The males stand side-by-side and deliver powerful (and resounding) blows to their opponents’ heads, necks and flanks. As a result many of the domes sport welts and lesions that the fibroblasts help heal quickly – an obviously vital attribute. It also means that the forest and woodland habitats of Pachycephalosaurus echo to the crack of heads in spring.

  Anzu: A large Caenagnathid very similar to Dinosaur Park’s Chirostenotes in most respects, including appearance and behaviour; it is, however, rather larger, at over 10ft long. It is also Hell Creek’s most colourful inhabitant.

  Acheroraptor: A small Dromaeosaurid raptor not unlike the more famous Velociraptor and quite closely related to it, it is quite rare in Hell Creek. It lives in the forests and open woodland as a solitary predator of small prey.

  Leptoceratops: This large Leptoceratopsid (over 6ft long and weighing up to 400lbs) is a common sight in the woods and marshes of Hell Creek; unlike its Dinosaur Park predecessors, it is almost exclusively herbivorous but can be quite aggressive. Approach with caution.

  Struthiomimus: Very similar in all aspects to the Dinosaur Park ostrich dinosaurs.

  THE TRAIL

  From Regicide: Hunting Tyrants in the Mesozoic by Alessandra Vassileva; used with permission.

  Chance bent down and ungloved his hand. With his index finger he traced the outline of the footprint in the mud.

  ‘15, maybe 20 years old… ’ he murmured.

  He wasn’t referring to the print but the young T-rex who made it. He looked up and I followed his gaze down the river. It looked like the Prince – or Princess – was heading to the beach.

  The comms chittered.

  ‘Ahhh, Cromwell, this is Pink One Actual. You want us to task a drone to find the animal?’

  Chance snorted. He didn’t even bother looking up.

  ‘Pink One Actual, that’s a negative,’ I said. ‘We’ll look for it the old fashioned way.’

  ‘Copy that.’

  ‘Print is pretty fresh,’ said Chance.

  I was watching the jungle that was rioting down to the river and swallowing up its banks. Thick boxwood and creeping ferns and bald cypress. Glyptostrobus knees rose out of the shallows, surrounded by duckweed. One of them was home to a trio of long-necked turtles and a Champsosaur, the four raised up in the morning light that filtered through the forest and fell on them as though they had been blessed from on high.

  ‘How fresh is fresh?’ I asked. ‘Like, day old or hours?’

  Watching the shadows, I never saw Chance shrug. Just hear
d the rustle of his ghillie suit. ‘It’s about half way between the high and low tide mark. Maybe three hours?’

  ‘Okay,’ was all I could think of to say. My crotch was itching and I wanted a change of underwear. The rebreather mask chafed. Sweat tickled the small of my back.

  Something splashed in the river, something big. By the time I turned, there was nothing but ripples making the duckweed undulate. The river’s edge was close. Danger close. Close enough for a croc to charge out of the water and grab Chance.

  ‘Let’s move.’

  We followed the trail although sometimes that wasn’t so easy. We picked our way through knee-deep mud and scouring rushes while a snow of catkin pollen swirled about us. Flies and biting insects bothered us, and we pulled down our insect hoods. We startled a flock of stilt-legged ducks that burst upward with the harsh breathing of flapping wings. Out of habit, I tracked them with the shotgun.

  We struggled through moonwort and horsetails up onto a cypress dome. It was like stepping into a lung made of trees. The air was still and smelt of loam and flowers. Flowers were blooming amongst the serpentine twists of roots and branches, brightly coloured lilies and sundews. There were burrows in the mud banks beneath the mangle of roots.

  ‘Probably crocs,’ said Chance. He knelt in the rich earth. Ran a hand over it. ‘No spores, no scat.’

  Abandoned burrows then.

  Golden light lanced in through the cypress canopies and made the dome a magical place and captured butterflies dancing. They were big, their wings the span of my hand. I watched entranced, but Chance knelt amongst the tracks of the Prince (we had at this point began to refer to the maker as a ‘he’…). Leaving the end of the dome, he had waded the river. There was an obvious fording point that any experienced croc would know so we sat for a while glassing the water and the bank. But there were no nostrils flaring at the surface, no nictitating membranes unfurling from a golden eye. No log that might or might not be an armoured back.

  Chance waded in while I covered him with the shotgun. He used a branch to gauge the water’s depth but it never came higher than the top of his legs. But that was still deep enough to hide even a moderate-sized croc or a giant gar, and we didn’t dally.

  We were deep in the forest understorey now. It was a heaven of magnolia blossoms, great nimbus clouds of pink and white and others I didn’t recognize that bloomed like cherry blossom and made the air and the ground white. Breadfruits and plane trees were laden with fruit, and the Osmandia ferns had ripened, turning the meadows gold. I pushed back my insect hood and pulled down the rebreather mask. The air smelt unbelievable. Like walking into a florists.

  At the edge of a glade, Chance slowly raised a hand. It was a casual gesture, not the firm decisiveness of a hunter seeing prey. I stopped but didn’t raise the shotgun.

  He knelt and I followed suit. Looking back over his shoulder, he pointed ahead.

  On the glade’s western side, an Anzu was harvesting breadfruit. A male, it was a wondrous palette of colours, its parrot beak reddish-orange, its cassowary casque crimson and its face a deep yellow, from which its black eye stood out brightly. It had ‘ears’ behind the eyes, ovals of dark blue over white. Its throat was russet as was the leading edge of its flightless wings, while the feathered vanes they supported were a vivid vermillion but tipped in twilight blue. The underside of its neck and its belly were flaming white; the back of the neck was an iridescent purple and the back a shimmering blue, iridescent as well. Its pygostyle was bright purple, and the long feathers they supported an orangey-red tipped in white. Even the scales on its naked lower legs were colourful, the same colour as its beak.

  I had never seen an ugly animal so beautifully coloured before. Its throat pouch was swollen with fruit which I suspected it was collecting for a nest full of chicks.

  It was about as tall as Chance and had a kick like the proverbial mule so we really didn’t want to disturb it, especially if it had chicks nearby. So, Chance looked back at me and with his hand swam around the glade in an arc.

  I nodded and crouched low as we swung into the treeline, swallowed up in magnolia blossoms. We crept past the Anzu, which must have heard us because it suddenly froze then turned and vanished into the trees. You’d have thought an animal who moved in such beauty would have stood out like a sore thumb infected with luminous bacteria, but it didn’t; it simply disappeared. The miracle of dazzle camouflage, I guess.

  We picked up the Prince’s trail, tripodal shapes in the duff of pine needles and dead leaves. It led us back down to the river. Here, the forest began to thin and give way to fern meadows, more golden Osmandia, bordered with chain ferns, cycads and Onoclea, broken by stands of palms and katsura with their gnarled grey bark. We stirred up a flock of Thescelosaurs (a mid-sized Ornithopod) who seemed to be uncomfortable with us, the weird shape of the ghillie suits not the familiar raptorial one of their regular predators but strange enough and mobile enough for concern. They watched us for a while then slowly returned to browsing, although one vigilant male stayed en garde until the river made a turn north and we disappeared from its sight.

  In the crock of the oxbow that the turn created, the trees thickened into a small wood of Araucarians, sycamore and laurels, palm trees rising high amongst them. There was a sandy beach that followed the box in the river and on an upturned tree root we paused to take a drink and a bite to eat. We chewed on power bars and jerky, and enjoyed the sunshine while we watched waterbirds dabble for worms. On the other side of the river was a sea of reeds and what we took to be hummocks of earth or deadfalls amongst the softly swaying clatter of blade-like leaves. These rose out of the mud and manifested themselves into a small herd of Triceratops. We watched them through our optics. Covered in black mud that would soon dry to a cracked grey, it was hard to gauge their sex but it looked like a bachelor herd of young males.

  This theory gained considerable weight when two of the Trikes began, for no discernable reason we could see, to have at it. They grunted and burbled at one another while their horns locked and wrestled, trying to twist each other over while circling about and kicking up geysers of mud and a cloud of waterbirds which had no doubt been enjoying their company up until that point.

  It would be a stupid T-rex of any age that would try its luck with these recalcitrant young bucks so we moved on, hotly pursuing the Prince with all the speed we could muster, which was tough on foot in sweltering ghillie suits. I checked the time. We had about four hours before the Pink Team called bingo on us and we’d have to head back to the campsite. Or we’d have about three more than that before they would have to come in and pick us up then fly us back.

  ‘Seven hours,’ I reminded Chance.

  ‘Ahuh,’ was all he said, not looking back, just watching the prints left by the long stride of the Prince.

  I wanted to remind him that night here came fast, but he didn’t need reminding and wouldn’t have cared anyway. That was my job: caring about the stuff that seemed trite but could get you killed. I asked Chance to hold up while I checked our position and comms checked with the Pink Team.

  All was well and while he kept his irritation to himself, Chance gave me a look and then struck out once more on the hunt.

  The fern meadows and reed beds gave way slowly to beach and the mudflats of the river’s estuary. There were still cypress domes and palm stands but the landscape was far more open, and the Prince’s trail became easy to follow. We squelched through brackish mud and tried to avoid stepping on the pink crabs that threatened us. A sea breeze came up, cool and strong enough to blow away the biting insects. The sand was white where it wasn’t broken up by reeds and ferns.

  Chance stopped dead. My first reaction was to shoulder the shotgun, but he just waved me forward. The smell of the sea gave way to something tangy and acrid. The Prince had taken a toilet break, leaving a pile of dung neat and tidy on the sand. A little raptor was picking its way through the droppings, looking for whatever it was it thought might be edible, I guess. I
t was strange seeing such a pretty animal doing such a noisome task. Toothed gulls, Icthyornids, gathered about it, looking for their chance.

  We gave the dung a wide berth but, wow, that scat stank.

  ‘It looked pretty solid,’ said Chance. ‘Pretty healthy individual.’

  ‘No doubt,’ was all the enthusiasm I could muster on that subject.

  Finally, the flora thinned away to nothing but dried seaweed.

  ‘Nice,’ said Chance.

  The beach was virgin white. It extended a quarter of mile eastward, flat, unbroken by dunes. The tide was out; we could see the greenish line that marked high water. Flocks of gulls stood out titanium white but for their red beaks against the sand. The sea beyond was a soft jade; the sky the definition of sky blue.

  There was a temptation to throw off the ghillie suit, strip to our undies, call down the Pink Team and get a beach party going, but the moment passed when Chance set off remorselessly along the trail of fork-shaped prints.

  Maybe another time, perhaps our last day in the Mesozoic. A chance to toast the demise of the dinosaurs.

  I trotted off to catch up with Chance, checking about us. The wide open space of the beach meant we would easily see trouble coming but equally, trouble could just as easily see us. The ghillie suits were now plain silly against the crystal-clean sand and I was tempted to recommend we strip them off, but they were cool and who knew where the trail would take us.

  As it was, it took us further down the beach. With the tide out, the beach gave way to old coral formations and rock. There were tidal pools and despite being in the Latest Cretaceous, I was tempted to go beachcombing. Others had the same idea. A lone female Acheroraptor (a type of small Dromaeosaurid raptor) was crunching down a small crab then turned to scrabbling around in the pools, looking for more seafood.