Chapter 50: Torvosaurus

Sobek headed for the source of the roar, trying to be as quiet as possible. Even if he didn't recognize the sound, it was obvious that it was the roar of a large predator. As he walked, more roars came from deep in the jungle. Hearing them, Sobek could deduce that there were at least two predators fighting. Eventually he came to the edge of a slope, where he stopped. Below him, in fact, there was a large clearing where at least a dozen large dinosaurs were resting. [Prey identified: Torvosaurus gurneyi, megalosauridae. Experience: 60,000 points] Sobek's heart leapt. Torvosaurs! They were basically the tyrannosaurs of the Jurassic period! They were predators at the top of the food chain. They didn't have the jaw structure as powerful as the one of the t-rex, but they were still almost as big as it was and had a powerful bite. They were the kind of dinosaurs that Sobek preferred stay away from. Their amount of experience proved their danger. Sobek was sure that if he ate one of them he would have gotten 7 or 8 skill points, but he didn't even think about attacking that pack of carnivores. He wasn't sure he could beat just one of them, let alone a whole pack! Unfortunatly for him, torvosaurs weren't solitary animals like his previous rival, the carcharodontosaurus; like many other megalosaurids, they formed family groups. The roars he had heard came from two young specimens who were fighting over a piece of meat. Sobek quickly turned around and walked away from that brisk pace. If they had smelled his scent he would have been in trouble. He had no hope of defeating a herd of ten-meter-long dinosaurs armed with deadly teeth. Even if majority of them were young specimen, they were still lethal. What were torvosaurs doing there? He had already ascertained there weren't big dinosaurs! Then he understood. He remembered that as he went up the river he had found fewer and fewer preys. It hadn't been a coincidence: the torvosaur pack was moving! They had probably been attracted by the easy hunting, just like him. In that area where there were no opponents and instead there was an abundance of easy preys to capture, for them it was like going to a banquet. Mammals had no way to win against predatory dinosaurs. Sobek was now in a precarious situation. He couldn't leave with the girl... but if he stayed, it could end very badly for him! It was unlikely that he would have ended to fight against the whole pack, but he knew that these animals hunted at least in pairs. And two predatory dinosaurs at the top of the food chain were too much for him. If he had been only one he could still take the risk, but two... There was an abundance of preys around, so they would hardly have come looking for him. However, if they thought he was a rival, they would have tried to kick him out. His scent was hidden by [Ambush], but he couldn't mantain the skill active while he sleep; and even if he would have resisted to the tiredness, if skeletons started appearing around the torvosaurs would know there was another predator. And then there was excrements, footprints, claw marks, fallen scales... the entire area was full of signs of his presence. The idea of the stupid dinosaur unable to put two and two together was unfortunately wrong: in reality it was almost impossible to deceive them. Sooner or later they would have moved in his direction. It was just a matter of time. "The more I stay, the more in danger I am" he thought. "What can I do? I cannot move with that girl. The simplest choice would be to abandon her. It wouldn't even be a bad idea... after all, there's no point in helping her if I die. Mh, but I still haven't solved the mystery... the problem remains of who she really is and what she represents for me. I still don't know whether to consider her a harmless nuisance or a potential danger. Besides, I don't dislike her company, I don't like the idea to abandon her to her fate. However, I certainly can't risk my life for her..." Eventually he made up his mind: he would stay with her as long as possible, trying to hide as best he could and avoid leaving any traces, and he would have waited for someone to come to take the girl. But if the situation became unbearable, he would have run away and leave her there. After all, she would have died even if he stayed: he couldn't defend even himself from the torvosaurs, consequently he would have died and she would have died too. On Earth some scientists had seen bears devour their own cubs to survive when they run out of food. This has an obvious logic: if the bear dies of hunger, then the cub also dies with it; but if the bear survives, it can always have another cub. Sobek was thinking the same way: if the torvosaurs had found and killed him, then the girl would have died of starvation or devoured by a predator; but if he retreated, at least he would have survived. Basically he had no attachment towards the girl: he likes her a bit, but he was helping her just for a scruple of morality; however, the supreme morality of any animal being was his own survival. If his life was at stake, Sobek wouldn't have hesitated to leave the area and abandon her. After all, he was no longer human, so it was foolish to think with human morality. In nature, in the end, the most charitable one almost never prevails: generally the winner was the most ruthless one. With this thought he returned to his momentary bed. The young girl seemed happy to see him again. "Hey, you're back..." she murmured. "Will you let me down now?" In response, Sobek lay down on the ground and ignored her. "Do I have to sleep here tonight?" the girl asked seeing that scene. Sobek replied with a growl. At which the girl tried to make herself comfortable on the tree. Now she was much less quiet: even though she had no instincts like animals, she could sense the tension coming from the spinosaurus well, and she didn't like it. ******** Over the next few days Jocelyne never came down from the tree. She slept there and when the spinosaurus returned from hunting it handed her the meat directly while she was on the branches. The young girl was very uncomfortable on the tree, which was hard and bumpy compared to the flat, soft earth, but she didn't complain even once. She tried to talk to the dinosaur again, but every time she opened her mouth it snorted in her direction, as if it didn't want her to make the slightest noise. Jocelyne wasn't a fool. She knew that the spinosaurus' strange behavior meant only one thing: they weren't safe. There must be another carnivore in the forest, one so dangerous that even the giant who was protecting her was intimidating. At first she couldn't figure out which animal such a behemoth could scare; after the battle against the carcharodonthosaurus, she started to believe that the spinosaurus had no rival. But then her private teacher's biology lessons came to her aid. The spinosaurus, although it was huge, still had a weak bite, quite the opposite of predators like the t-rex or the giganotosaurus. Maybe this one here could compensate with claws, but it was still at a disadvantage anyway. Besides, it was alone, and Jocelyne was well aware that those carnivores generally hunted with at least one companion. If they attacked it, it was unlikely that the spinosaurus would have emerged victorious from the fight. Each day the spinosaurus left earlier and returned later, a sign that it made much longer laps to avoid encountering this mysterious adversary. Jocelyne felt a little guilty: even if she wasn't an expert of the animal world, she was still able to understand that the only thing that kept the spinosaurus from running away was her. Even so, however, the ide to tell it to leave never even pass through the antechamber of her brain. It was her life insurance: if it abandoned her, she would die. Jocelyne was terrified that one day the spinosaurus would not return. If that happened, what could she have done? =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= AUTHOR'S THOUGHTS Hi! Time for another of our paleontology lessons! 1) Some of you may be bothered by Sobek's thoughts; after all, he first thought of killing a twelve-year-old girl, then now he is thinking of abandoning her. However, there is a detail of the story that you must take into account: as he has already shown several times, Sobek has completely lost his humanity. Even though he still possesses human-level intelligence, that doesn't make him a "good person". Yes, because concepts such as morality, unfortunately, are actually nothing more than a privilege; the privilege of being born in the right part of the world and at the right time, when people can live in safe house and they can call the police. If any of you went to an area of the world where people aren't so lucky and where services like the police and rights aren't guaranteed, you would find that people there don't make great use of morality, simply because they cannot afford it. In nature it is even worse. In nature, the only way to survive is to put feelings aside and focus on yourself, or if you really want to be "good" on a small group of people. But you can't be a philanthropist, because you have to constantly confront with limited resources, lack of food, lack of medical care, predators, adversaries and many other dangers. Therefore, hardly a "good person" would survive, while those people who in our view are defined as 'cruel' or 'ruthless' would get away with it. Therefore Sobek, who not only has always lived confronting the dangers of nature, but who has also lost all of his humanity, has no reason to worry about a little girl that he has just met and with whom he has no real connection, at least not if his own survival is at stake. I know it sounds cruel, but that is the reality of the nature. 2) Jackson Oz and Abraham Kenyatta are both characters of the tv series "Zoo". In the series they are a zoologist and his partner; here, they are both soldiers of the private militia of Jersey family. Jocelyne, instead, is my own creation, just like her parents. 3) Carcharodontosaurus is a dinosaur that lived in the Cretaceous period, about 112 and 93.5 million years ago, in what today are Egypt, Morocco and Niger. The genus includes two species, the type species C.saharicus and C.iguidensis. Both species are among the largest theropod dinosaurs ever, competing in size with other giants such as tyrannosaurus, giganotosaurus, and even spinosaurus. According to estimates, it could reach between 12 and 13.3 meters, with an estimated weight between 6.2 and 15.1 tons; unfortunately, in the absence of more complete findings, it is impossible for us to establish a correct estimate of its size. It shared its habitat with other large predatory theropods, raising doubts about how these carnivorous animals could coexist, especially with the colossal spinosaurus and the smaller but still substantial sigilmassasaurus, both of which lived in the same places across Morocco and Egypt. In addition to them there were also two other smaller theropods, deltadromeus and bahariasaurus. The herbivorous fauna, on the other hand, was more scarce and characterized by the ouranosaurus iguanodontid and the paralititan sauropod. There were also several species of crocodiles, such as the gigantic sarcosuchus, and numerous species of amphibians and fish. Carcharodontosaurus represented the second largest theropod in its habitat (although according to estimates it may outnumber spinosaurus, but it is very unlikely). Carcharodontosaurus is not well known despite its size, and in fact it does not appear in many cinematographic works; his most notable screen appearance is in the documentary "Planet Dinosaur". 4) The battle between Sobek and the carcharodontosaurus are a reference to a scene of the documentary "Planet Dinosaur", were a carcharodontosaurus and a spinosaurus fight for a carcass of ouranosaurus. In reality, it's very unlike that a carcharodontosaurus and a spinosaurus ever fought; since they occupied two different ecological niches (one was a meat-eater and the other was a fish-eater) they probably simply avoid each other. Also, probably the carcharodontosaurus would have won this battle, contrary to what happens in the documentary. The battle of Sobek and his rival is also full of reference of the battle between the t-rex and the spinosaurus in Jurassic Park 3 (during the fight the two rivals emulate many of the moves of the film). 5) The spider that Jocelyne disturbs in chapter 41 is a species of the genus Megarachne, an ancient spider from the Late Carboniferous period (more than 320 million years ago). It is considered one of the biggest spider ever existed (if not THE biggest!) and it could reach a body lenght of 54 centimeters. It appears in the BBC documentary series 'Walking with monsters' and also in the series 'Primeval', even if its name is never said in both of them. 6) The pulmunoscorpio instead lived in the Early Carboniferous period, 345 million years ago, in Scotland. It could reach a length of one meter and was probably one of the main predators of its environment and, unlike its equally large ancestors (such as brontoscorpio), this scorpion was probably already an inhabitant of the mainland. It appears in the series "Prehistoric Park". 7) The columbian mammoth is an extinct species of elephant that lived in North America between 100,000 and 9,000 years ago. The scientific name derives from the fact that it was prevalent mainly in the territory of today's United States of America (whose historical name is Columbia). It is an exclusively American species, which evolved from an ancestor who colonized the new world about 1.5 million years ago, while in Eurasia it evolved separately into the woolly mammoth. Some believe it to be a subspecies of the larger imperial mammoth, as fossils of the two species are often found at the same sites. It appears in the tv series 'Primeval', and in more than just one episode. 8) Embolotherium (whose name in Greek means "ram beast", or "wedge beast") is a genus of brontoteriid that lived in Mongolia during the late Eocene. It is easily recognizable by the bony protuberance located in the front of the skull, which resembles a ram, hence its name. The animal was studied using 12 skulls, multiple jaws, and a variety of bone elements from the Ulan Gochu formed from Inner Mongolia and Irgilin Dzo from Outer Mongolia. Several species of Embolotherium have been classified, including E. andrewsi, E. grangeri, E. louksi, E. ultimum, E. ergilensis, and E. efremovi. However, currently only two species, E. andrewsi and E. grangeri, appear to be valid. The other presumed Embolotherium species are probably synonymous with these two species and were originally based on skulls of young specimens, poorly preserved fossils, or specimens with no specific differences. It appears in the BBC documentary 'Walking with beasts', in the tv series 'Primeval' and even in the famous movie "Ice Age". 9) Entelodon is an extinct artiodactyl mammal belonging to the suiforms; it lived in the Early-medium Oligocene period (about 33 - 28 million years ago) and its fossil remains have been found in Europe and Asia. The appearance of this animal was rather bizarre: it had a large skull (about 65 centimeters long), with an elongated snout and equipped with large canines and strong bony projections, while the robust body was supported by long and strong didactic legs. He could reach the height at the withers had to reach about 1.35 meters. In general, the appearance vaguely resembled that of a huge wild boar with a strange skull. It appears in the BBC documentary "Walking with beasts". 10) Megalania (whose name means "wandering giant") is an extinct giant monitor lizard. It was part of the megafauna that inhabited southern Australia during the Pleistocene and apparently it disappeared around 40,000 years ago. The first aboriginal settlers of Australia may have encountered living specimens. It could reach 7 meters in length and its weight is estimated between 320 and 1940 kg. 11) Kaprosuchus is an extinct genus of mahajangasuchid crocodyliform; it is known from a single nearly complete skull collected from the Echkar Formation of Niger. It lived in the Early Cretaceous period, almost 95 million years ago. The name means 'boar crocodile' in reference to its unusually large caniniform teeth which resemble those of a boar. The original description estimated the entire animal to be 6 metres in length. It possessed three sets of tusk-like caniniform teeth that project above and below the skull, one of which in the lower jaw fits into notches in upper jaw, a type of dentition that isn't seen in any other known crocodyliform, and it had large, rugose horns formed from the squamosal and parietal bones that project posteriorly from the skull. It was a terrestrial predator and probably it could eat some small dinosaurs. It appears in the tv series "Primeval". 12) Jeholopterus was a pterosaur that lived 165-155 million years ago in China; it is known for an almost complete and articulated skeleton, in which the prints of the wings and a kind of down have been preserved. The jeholottero possessed a short tail and a high, short and broad skull; the mouth, therefore, was similar to that of a frog and had short and pointed teeth. Some paleontologists believe it could be insectivorous, but there are also theories that see it as hematophagous (given the similarity of its teeth to those of vampire bats). In my story I chose that it could feed on both. 13) Mononykus (whose name means "single claw") is an extinct genus of alvarezsaurid theropod dinosaur that lived about 70 million years ago in what is now the Nemegt Formation in Mongolia. The genus contains a single species, namely M. olecranus. This little animal was an agile biped capable of running at great speed thanks to its long, thin legs, which would have given it a great advantage in the open floodplains it lived in. It appears in the 2022 documentary "Prehistoric planet". 14) Mastodonsaurus was a giant amphibian lived in the Triassic period, about 225 million years ago; it had a short body and tail and a flat skull. It represented one of the largest amphibians ever lived: the skull alone measured more than a meter in length; it was endowed with large jaws equipped with sharp teeth, with which it caught the fish it ate. The legs were rather short and were not very suitable to support the weight of the enormous body on land, so it is deduced that the mastodontosaurus spent most of its life in water or at most lying on the banks of rivers and lakes. 15) Stomatosuchus (whose name means "unarmed mouth crocodile") is an extinct crocodilomorphic stomatosuchid reptile, lived about 100-94 million years ago in today's Egypt. The head of this crocodile was elongated and very large, with a wide mouth similar to that of a pelican; from the conformation of the bones of the jaw, it seems clear that the stomatosuchus was equipped with a real throat pocket, which perhaps was used to hold the fish it ate after having swallowed them. Another hypothesis is that the Stomatosuchus was a filter animal, like whales and flamingos. In any case, it was unlike that he could eat large terrestrial animals, but maybe it could feed from the small ones. 16) The way Sobek kills the stomatosuchus is a reference to the 2009 documentary "Mega Beasts", where a spinosaurus (very poorly paleontologically accurate) kills a sarcosuchus by slashing its flank with its powerful claws (in reality if a sarcosuchus and a spinosaurus were faced it probably would have been the spinosaurus to succumb). 17) Microraptor was one of the most important testimonial of the evolution of birds, just like the archaeopteryx. It lived 120 million years ago in China. It had four wings which it could glide through trees. The scene where it eats the coelurosauravus is a reference to "Planet Dinosaur", where a microraptor hunts a small flying lizard, altough in the documentary it is a xianglong, not a coelurosauravus. The coelurosauravus, in fact, lived 250 million years ago in Europe and Madagascar, almost 130 million years before the appearance of the microraptor. The coelurosauravus also appeared in the series "Primeval" as Rex, the pet of one of the main characters. 18) Torvosaurus (whose name means "wild lizard") is an extinct genus of megalosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived approximately 153-148 million years ago in what is now Colorado and Portugal. The genus currently contains only two species: the type species T. tanneri and the European species T. gurneyi. It was a large bipedal predator with a powerful build, which could reach about 10.5 meters in length and therefore ranks among the largest carnivores of its time, along with other gigantic predators such as saurophaganax, allosaurus and ceratosaurus. It appears in the 2009 documentary "Dinosaur Revolution", were it is shown as the superpredator of its time and it fights against an allosaurus. 19) "I start to doubt about my decision... is it a good idea that I protect and train who could become my worst enemy?" is a Dragonball reference: it is what Piccolo thought when he discovered the hidden potential of the young Gohan. This sentence, however, is present only in some version, like the italian version. Since it is pretty good, I want to insert it in the story. 20) In the chapter "The rival's fall" many animals appeared, especially prehistoric carnivorous mammals, but it would take too long to list and describe them all, so this time I leave it to you to inform yourself. Remember, paleontology is primarily based on researching and informing alone on your own initiative.