Crucible of a Species (22 page)

It gracefully weaved around the scrub palmetto and down the soft loam path. A fine coat of quill-like appendages flowed behind it much as a cape would on a human. The quills were soft, almost subtle but stiff enough that they swayed across its back like the coat of a porcupine.

Breathing hard, the young male stopped and looked back down the path. Its muzzle formed a parrot-like bill but, unlike a parrot, it had long and very sharp vampire-like fangs extending from both upper and lower jawbones.

A paleontologist, finding the fossil bones of this unusual animal, would have noticed the many characteristics it shared with a smaller, earlier fossil species called a Pegomastax or, more informally as some were wont to do, a “Pego”.

Without a sound, the pego lowered itself onto all four feet and bounded down the trail. The musical calls that continually saturated the surrounding jungle quickly settled into the deceptively familiar, low constant singing of a thousand mingled voices and flutes -- a communal chorus of many throats brought on by the warm rays of the mid-day sun now filling the valley.

Despite the beauty of the jungle’s calls, they carried a warning. Their familiar, almost bird-like voices did little to soothe the waves of fear now washing over the animal. It could hear the dangerously close approach of the much larger predators for their low calls betrayed their proximity as the pack of hunters moved silently through the low palm undergrowth. The hunters were close and their weight was so great this little pego could sense each approaching footstep through the soft grassy matte beneath its feet. The warm smell of the blood scent carried by a predator’s breath enveloped the pego and instinct screamed to this little fugitive that stealth was no longer an option. Onward it fled, drawn by the safety of numbers found in his flock.

The cape of sharp quills rattled softly across its back as the pego scurried down a trail worn bare to its dark loam base. The little dinosaur’s memory led it along the branch that travelled down towards the river where the grass cover of the jungle floor eventually gave way to a sandy mix rising up around its toes.

Pego pushed ahead on legs already growing weary. More accustomed to stealth than flight, it forced itself to take slow, shallow breaths that would not alert the keen senses of the predators. Resting briefly, it glanced back down the path and spotted movement.

As it watched, a long, thin neck stretched above the high grass. Pego’s eyes registered the familiar shape of the animal’s sharp yellow and black quills. Spines that started as a delicate almost feather-like down around its head, lengthened as their stems originated further down the long neck to form a graceful flowing mantle that swayed side-to-side across its back, adding a provocative grace to its stride. The animal turned towards the pego and their eyes met.

Two night-black eyes looked into the pego’s as a multi-color, rounded beak opened to reveal long, white fangs extending beyond a mouth filled with smaller, razor sharp teeth. The bulb in its throat wobbled up and down as it called out a greeting in the low rolling ring characteristic of its species. The little pego instantly recognized its mate and knew the flock would be near.

Its flight now turned sharply in the direction of its mate
.
Raising its body to run on two feet, it pushed through the thick grassy edge of a meadow filled with brambles and out into the bright sun of an open field. Emerging into the open space, the little pego saw the flock mixed with a large herd of grass-eating hadrosaurs extending across most of the upper grassland.

The hadrosaurs were much larger animals than the pego. Some moved about on two legs, feeding on the high branches of trees where the younger, tastier leaves grew. Others lazily waddled about on all fours, idly chewing on the low growth scattered throughout the clearing. Many of these grass eaters had bright red and blue boney crests above their heads that extended up and partially across their backs. Broad, flat muzzles, shaped like a duck’s bill, contained hundreds of flat teeth and their upper jaws pushed outwards and sideways while the lower jaw stayed fixed to slide against the upper teeth as it ground leaves and twigs into a sweet, soft paste.

Instinct drove the little pego directly into their midst darting through, around and over the massive feet and tails of the hadrosaurs. Most of the grass-eaters ignored its passage since the two herds frequently travelled together. Two huge males however spotted the little pego. Slowly they lowered their heads to the ground, presenting an invitation as pego approached. This was a call to the little dinosaur to mount and begin sifting through the larger dinosaur’s soft, down-covered head and neck for the annoying parasitic tidbits crawling there that tasted so good.

In his flight, the pego ignored the invitation of their lowered heads. The pegomastax had no time for feeding since danger followed close behind. A shrill, staccato alarm erupted from the pego’s throat as it scuttled around the behemoths. Instinct told it that the only safety for the flock was to run to the center of the grass-eater’s herd. Its mate and the rest of the flock took up the cry of alarm across the wide meadow as they saw its flight and heard its desperate cry. Like an aural wave rolling across the field, the small pegomastax dinosaurs stopped whatever they were doing and took up the alarm, each pushing inward toward the protection of the grass-eaters.

The flock’s cries and movement electrified the attention of the much larger members of the hadrosaur herd. Massive heads topped by large, flowing bright colored crests lifted high into the air searching in alarm for the threat. Mothers began to bleat and sing plaintively, pushing their youngsters inward to the center of the meadow where they formed a tightly packed grouping.

Older hadrosaurs bellowed as they swung into formation. The largest of them pushed against the tight knot of juveniles, turned their backs and reared high into the air on their hind legs to form an outer protective ring. Younger, more agile adults kept the low watch, standing solidly on all four feet. Their heads turned outward from the center to form the outermost layer of the defense.

A deadly challenge in the form of a piercing screech rent the air of the field as the first of the bipedal tyrannosaur predators crashed through the dense brush. The fearsome creature that emerged into the meadow was almost as tall as the largest of the grass-eaters. A fine coat of small, almost-black feathers covered the predator from tail-tip to nose. Red to dark-orange shafts of plumage crested the head of the tyrannosaurus, running in thin stripes down its back and out onto the tail. Yellow feathers bristled thickly in excitement around the dinosaur’s neck, forming a ring as the beast stretched upwards on two muscular hind legs to scream its challenge to the world through white rows of deadly sharp teeth.

Three more tyrannosaurs
followed, violently bursting from the dense brush and into the clearing. The valley rang with screeches, screams, calls and threats. Watching from deep inside the safety of the tightly packed herd, the pego could see the hunters outside slowly encircling the grass-eaters, all the while searching for a weakness in the perimeter of the defensive ring. The movements of the predators became harder to follow as the shading of their feathers softened to blend into the changed lighting of the clearing. They moved with a beautiful, smooth grace, bobbing up and down in the uneven high grass that surrounded the tight knot of cowering grass-eaters.

One of the larger tyrannosaurs lowered its head and darted in, its massive jaws thrusting at the leg of the hadrosaur standing directly over the small pego. Leaving the relative safety of the ring, the pego dashed out and jumped at the exposed throat of the attacker.

The tyrannosaur had lowered its head in its charge, but the little animal was so small it easily passed under the massive, open jaws. The pego leaped into the air as high as possible but its fangs could only reach the hard under-jaw of the beast.

A set of sharp, but much too small, fangs pierced the thin under-skin of the tyrannosaur’s neck, skidding across the jawbone without gripping. This small, almost inconsequential animal had drawn first blood causing the surprised tyrannosaur to lift its head and pull back in reaction.

The distraction of the little pego’s attack gave the herbivore the time needed to react. The bull hadrosaur’s soft mouth opened exposing broad, flat plates of teeth as its lungs pulled in great volumes of air. It extended its head forward, preparing to bellow directly at the attacking predator.

Instinctively knowing what was coming; the pego twisted, desperately trying to throw itself back to the safety of the inner ring when the discharge came. A set of lungs greater in size than the pego’s entire quill-covered body forced air through a pipe organ like complex of boney tubes that made up the long crest of the hadrosaur’s head. Like the low and painful vibrations that occur when one back window of a speeding automobile is opened, torrents of air resonated within the dinosaur’s hollow, boney crest. Here the long winding passages of bone, more intricately shaped than the wrapped tubes of a French Horn, created a long vibrating air column, its frequency controlled by staccato blast of waves driven directly from the herbivore’s lungs and focused by soft pliant lips onto its target.

The resonance packet of sound exploded from the now oddly shaped, soft muzzle of the hadrosaur to emerge as a single high intensity, extremely low-pitched bleat that drilled into its victim. Focused and delivered at close range, the sound front penetrated deep into the victim’s body causing intense muscle contractions. The predator’s heart violently constricted. Chest wall and lung tissues sheared as the waves ripped through the predator’s body and central nervous system. Their impact threw the hapless six-ton tyrannosaur over onto its side.

Pego’s head throbbed from the hadrosaur’s defense even though the little dinosaur was not directly in its path. Its ears buzzed. It could no longer hear the screams and calls now filling the field around it. Dazed, the pego staggered back to the safety of the grass-eater’s herd and crawled up a massive tail to perch on the churning back of a bull hadrosaur. Slowly, it shook his head, trying to drive away the throbbing pain.

Vision still blurred, the pego turned and looked back. The hunter, hit by the blast of the sound front, jerked in spasm but could not rise from the ground. A second tyrannosaur stumbled over the beast and lashed out in anger.

Blood flew as its forearm claws then caught and dug into a flailing leg. The fresh scent of blood drove the piercing screams of the attackers to even greater frenzy even as the entire valley rang with low-toned, deadly blasts of sound from the animals defending their families. A constant drone of low-pitched bleats, mixed with the infuriated screams of the attackers causing Pego’s head to throb painfully.

After a while, the attacking tyrannosaurs hesitated and pulled back from the grass-eater’s defensive line. There they gathered in a group just outside the circle. The pego scurried back down to the ground to a spot where it could see through the surrounding forest of legs churning and stomping in fear. The predators gathered outside the ring bobbing their heads up and down in frustration.

Several of the younger hunters pulled away and feigned a charge. A massive leg next to the pego shifted, landing with a thump that grazed the little dinosaur’s tail. The diminutive pegomastax could just as easily die from the nervous patter of his four-ton hadrosaur protectors as from a bite of the fierce tyrannosaurs.

The entire knot of tyrannosaurs suddenly turned and charged, concentrating on one point in the defensive ring. The hadrosaurs responded, pushing back to counter the attack that again focused on the very spot where the little pego stood. As rapid as a striking snake, the pego clawed his way up the nearest leg, jumped over and onto the raised tail of another hadrosaur and up to the relative safety of its shoulder.

Massive lungs expanded with a great intake of air. A sudden blast rang forward, caving in the torso of a charging predator. The hapless tyrannosaurus flew back to bounce off the shoulders of a second beast pushing in from behind. The sheer mass of the predator’s attack lifted the injured hunter and continued the tyrannosaurus’s forward push like a mighty wedge, piercing through the tightly packed outer defense ring of the grass-eaters.

Pego’s foot slipped as a set of sharp-toothed jaws narrowly missed to close around the head of the hadrosaur that it was riding. The savage shake that followed threw the little animal against a set of teeth sunk deeply into the head. The tyrannosaur twisted viciously while yanking its victim’s head back. Pego spun, bracing its foot against blood covered teeth, risked a desperate leap and landed on the shoulder of another grass-eater churning in the tightly packed knot of attackers and defenders. The pego clawed, savagely trying to dig his fangs into the grass-eater’s thick skin while slipping down its side. A high screech rose from his throat and transformed into a straining scream as it managed to catch a grip and scramble up to the safety of the head.

Two massive tyrannosaurs savagely dragged the pego’s injured hadrosaur out of the ring. Smaller hunters swarmed over it as it emerged kicking, bleating and screaming into the open field. One of the victim’s almost hoof-like feet struck out and caught a young tyrannosaur on the side of its head, spinning it around.

One by one, the hunters pulled the larger grass-eaters from the safety of the ring. Each defenseless victim swiftly died as younger, more agile predators ripped into the struggling hadrosaur’s soft underbelly or throat. The hot-copper scent of blood permeated the air as the carnage increased in violence. Then the tyrannosaurs again pulled back and the sounds of a thousand horns, bleats and screams eventually softened and eventually stopped as both sides took a breath. The hiatus was brief and the hunters turned from their ravaged victims and began circling the now smaller defensive ring of grass eaters.