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“What are they?” Daljit asked quietly. “I mean, I know they’re hadrosaurs, but what kind?”
Hadrosaurs, or duckbilled dinosaurs, made up a very large family grouping indeed, including dozens of known species spread throughout the Late Cretaceous. To call something a hadrosaur was like declaring a particular mammal was a feline without specifying whether it was a leopard or a house cat.
“Well, keep in mind that I’m a bone man at heart,” Leyster said. “I’d have a much easier time if there weren’t all that skin and muscle in the way.” What he really needed was a Peterson’s Field Guide to the Late Maastrichtian Megafauna, with diagnostic illustrations and little black lines pointing to all the field-marks. “Still, check out those heads. They’re definitely hadrosaurines—the non-crested duckbills. And from the elongation and width of the snouts I’d have to say they were Anatotitan. What species of anatotitan, though, I don’t know.”
“They sure are active buggers,” Daljit said. “Look at them bob up and down.”
Crouching, they crept closer. Anatotitans were herbivores, of course. But they were also enormous. An animal half as big as a bus didn’t have to be a carnivore to be dangerous.
They got within thirty yards before some unseen signal passed among the animals and, as one, they rose to their hind legs and moved swiftly away. They did not run, exactly, but their bounding gait was so quick that they were, nevertheless, gone in a moment.
“Come on,” Leyster said. “Let’s—”
Tamara was tugging at his sleeve. “Look!”
He looked back where she pointed.
The Lord of the Valley came striding upriver. Leyster recognized the tyra
The most dangerous predator the world had ever known glided swiftly through the low growth with a dreamlike lack of haste. His pace was unrushed, and yet his legs were so long, he moved with astonishing speed.
Silent as a shark, he strode after the fleeing anatotitans. He didn’t even give the researchers a glance as he passed by.
“Holy shit,” Patrick said flatly.
“Come on.” Leyster gestured. “We’ve got a lot of land to cover. Let’s get moving.”
They headed west, parallel to the sluggish River Styx, being careful to keep to the forest side of the herds.
As they traveled, Leyster told the others something about hadrosaurs. They knew already that hadrosaurs were the most diverse and abundant group of large vertebrates in the northern hemisphere during the closing stages of the Late Cretaceous, and that they were the last major group of ornithopods to evolve in the Mesozoic. But he wanted them to understand that in many ways hadrosaurs were a blueprint for the dinosaurs of their future. That they were so well adapted to such a variety of ecosystems that if it hadn’t been for the K-T event, their descendants might well have survived into modern times.
“So what makes them so special?” Patrick asked. “They sure don’t look like much. Why should they dominate the ecology?”
“Maybe because they’re ideal tyra
Patrick scowled. “No, seriously.”
“Seriously?” Leyster said, “They’re generalists, like we are. You’ll notice that humans don’t have many specialized adaptations either. No armor, no horns, no claws. But we can find a way to get along wherever we find ourselves. Same thing with hadrosaurs. They—”
“Shush!” Lai-tsz said. “I hear something. Up ahead.”
A lone triceratops poked its head out of the distant wood. Cautiously, it eased out into the open. It ambled a short way into the meadow, then stopped. That massive head swung to one side, and then to the other, as it searched for enemies. Finally, convinced there were none, it grunted three times.
A pause. Then a second triceratops emerged from the woods. A third. A fourth. A ragged line of the brutes flowed out of the woods and into the ferns and flowers. Their frills were all as bright as butterflies, dominated by two black-rimmed orange circles, like great eyes.
“Triceratops herds have leaders!” Nils said. “Just like cattle.”
“We can’t conclude that yet,” Leyster cautioned. “It looks good, but it’ll take long and careful observation to make sure that what we think we’re seeing is actually so.”
“Look at those frills! Sexual display, you think?”
“Got to be.”
Lai-tsz put down her glasses and, pointing at the leader, asked, “What’s that swelling?”
The creature’s face looked puffy. Twin nasal sacs to either side of its central horn were inflated like the cheeks of a bullfrog. Suddenly they deflated. Gronk!
Everybody laughed. Tamara fell over, whooping. “Oh God, can you believe it? What a noise! It sounds like a New Year’s Eve noisemaker.”
The triceratops pawed the earth.
Lai-tsz and Nils made shushing noises at Tamara. “Quiet! It’s doing something.” Patrick darted off to the side, camera out, looking for a good angle.
The animal’s face pouches were inflating again. It took several deep, gulping breaths, shaking its head as it did so. “What do you think it’s doing?” Lai-tsz asked Leyster.
“I don’t know. It looks kind of like it’s reinflating—”
Gronk!
Tamara clapped a hand over her mouth, cutting off a high-pitched laughter in mid-shriek.
“Look over there,” Nils said. “Somebody else wants to get into the act.” A second triceratops was approaching the first, slowly and meaningfully. “Intraspecific aggression, do you think? Dominance display? Are they going to fight?”
The first triceratops had his nasal sacs half inflated again. The second stopped within charging distance of him and then bowed its head. Slowly, ponderously, it rolled over onto its side.
“I don’t think so,” Leyster said wryly. “It looks more like a mating display.”
“It’s a girl!” Tamara cried.
Gronk!
Lying on the ground, one rear leg raised in the air, the female shivered.
“She’s mesmerized!”
“C’mere, big boy.”
“Oh, mamma. You know you want me.”
With unhurried dignity, the male maneuvered himself alongside the female, one foreleg to either side of her tail. It paused then, seemingly baffled. The female made a plaintive sound, and he took a step backward, then another forward, trying to get himself into position. That didn’t work either. But on his third attempt, he finally got their bellies properly aligned and slowly eased himself downward.
“Man, oh, man,” Patrick muttered. “These shots are going to be great.”
Ponderously, the two triceratopses began to mate.
It was sunset when they finally got back to camp and discovered that Jamal’s crew had moved the contents of two of the tents into the long house, and lashed the tents’ canvases to the frame to make walls. So up the slope they went, to share what they’d seen.
The interior of the long house was bright with artificial light. It looked infinitely welcoming. Of course, their flashlights, even with the solar rechargers, would only last so long. All the more reason to use them now. Brandish ye flashlights while ye may, Leyster thought. Old Time is still a-flying.
“Take your shoes off!” Katie called cheerfully as they entered. “There’s a space for them by the door.”
The interior was fragrant with the smell of ferns, which had been brought in by the armload and dumped over the floor, and with turtle soup, simmering in a kettle over the fire outside. Leyster and the others came in and sat.
“Welcome the intrepid dino hunters!” Chuck declared. “You’re just in time for supper. Come in, sit down, tell us everything.”