Chapter 61: Distant cousin

Once he finished devouring the sarcosuchus and upgraded [Fast eating], Sobek still had 4 skill points left. To fully upgrade that skill, however, he needed a total of 20 of them. But Sobek wasn't too worry, actually, he was confident he could get enough points as he made his way back to the cave: he was still quite far away, so he had all the time that he needed. His current experience amount was 170,000 points. He was still a long way from the 240,000 he needed to level up again, but that wasn't his priority anyway. Hunting only crocodiles, big amphibians or giant fishes he couldn't accumulate a great deal of experience, but what he was really interested in were skill points. After all, he had already become the largest carnivore on Earth: what he needed were efficient weapons to face the most dangerous dinosaurs, he no longer needed to rely entirely on the advantage of size. However, one day he had found several parasaurolophs drinking from the river. Sobek still harbored a certain grudge against that species. Even if he had killed the one who made him nauseous, still their mere presence bothered him. And after all, they could be useful to him: so many dinosaurs all together would undoubtedly attract a predator. And in fact, after a short time Sobek noticed a movement in the trees. [Prey identified: Ceratosaurus nasicornis, ceratosauridae. Experience: 20,000 points] Sobek grinned. He had found a way to kill two birds with one stone. He waited for the ceratosaurus to attack; the parasaurolophs didn't smell it since it was downwind and they didn't hear it since he was very stealth. When the time was right, the predator attacked one of them. Its prey was quickly bitten and the neck snapped under the force of the ceratosaur's jaw; however, the other parasaurolphs yelled at the predator to stun it so their companion could escape. While the parasaurolophs ran away towards the forest, in fact, the ceratosaurus moved uncertainly on its legs as if it were drunk. That loud sound had completely destabilized its brain. This was the moment Sobek was waiting for. Due to the disorientation, the ceratosaurus didn't even hear him coming. He just felt a slight pain when Sobek threw a paw at it and killed it, and then nothing. Then he walked over to the parasaurolophus, which was still in agony, and crushed its head with one of his paw. Sobek had obtained two large preys without even making a commitment. This was called watching two tigers from the mountain! With the parasaurolophus captured by the ceratosaurus and the ceratosaurus itself, his experience rose to 202,000 points. In addition, the ceratosaurus granted him another 4 skill points. Sobek regretted that the ceratosaurus was already dead, because otherwise he would have made fun of it! As he returned to the river he hoped to find another sarcosuchus; or a suchomimus, or a barionyx, would also have been good. Instead for two days he found nothing to his great disappointment. In addition, he couldn't even catch crocodiles or freshwater sharks, making him even more irritated. On the third day, however, he found himself in front of a distant cousin. He initially mistook it for a suchomimus, but when he approached he found that it was something else. [Prey identified: Irritator challengeri, spinosauridae. Experience: 25,000 points] The irritator was another fish-eating dinosaur from the spinosaurus family, a somewhat close relative to them. Like them, it also lived almost always in water where it could find the fishes that fed it, and it too had a thin sail on its back, even if only slightly hinted at. It was about 8 meters long and had very sharp claws, but was defenseless against a colossus like Sobek. When it saw him, the irritator immediately tried to escape, not at all intending to fight against such a monster, but it was useless: the speed on the land of Sobek had now reached 24 km/h, almost as much as that of the tyrannosaurus. There was no way the irritator could escape. Sobek reached it in a couple of seconds and he used his claws to break its legs. The dinosaur fell to the ground, then it rolled on its side trying to defend itself, but the spinosaurus was too strong and broke its neck easily. After devouring it, Sobek received 5 skill points. He was then able to upgrade [Fast eating] to level 4/5. By now it was already taking only a little more than an hour to finish pulping the carcasses. Once the skill was at its full potential, that time would have been drastically reduced. After updating [Fast eating] he still had 3 skill points left, which meant he only needed to find 7 more to fully maximize it. He also had 227,000 experience points. He began to wonder if he shouldn't try to level up one more time before starting evolution. He was very close to the 240,000 that he needed after all. Maybe, he could spend some much time to hunt before start the evolution. However, a rumble distracted him from his thoughts. He looked up and saw the unmistakable silhouette of a helicopter in the sky. =+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+= AUTHOR'S THOUGHTS Hi! Time for another of our little paleontology lessons! Don't worry, this one won't be long as the last one. 1) Mitch Morgan is one of the main character of the series 'Zoo'. He is an animal expert that, togheter with the other main character, understands what is about to happen in the animal kingdom and tries to stop it. In this story, he is a famous biologist (so he is very close to his 'Zoo' version). His father, Max Morgan, is also a character of 'Zoo', but he has a much more marginal role. I tried to keep them both close to their original personalities and their father/son relationship shown in the series. 2) Andrewsarchus (whose name means 'Andrews meat eater') is an artiodactyl mammal that lived during the Eocene, about 48-41 million years ago, in what is now Mongolia. The genus contains a single species, A. mongoliensis, known for a single large skull. We know very little about this animal given the scarcity of finds; originally, given the size of the skull, it was believed to be a creature of gigantic dimensions, but today these estimates have been reduced as paleontologists have established that probably the andrewsarchus had a body shape very similar to the one of the entelodons; despite this, it remains the largest known carnivorous mammal, with a length of 5-6 meters. Although not well known, he appeared in the documentary 'Walking with beasts', where it is mistakenly portrayed as a giant wolf, superpredator of its environment, that feed on whatever it finds; the documentary, however, mentions its close relationship and similarity with the artiodactyls. 3) The way Sobek kills the last torvosaurus (the one already wounded by humans) is a reference to 'Jurassic Park 3', as with the same move the spinosaurus of that film kills a t-rex. The way he initially defends himself from them (using his powerful forelimbs) is instead a reference to the battle between the Indominus rex and the tyrannosaurus in 'Jurassic World', where the Indominus uses its claws to hit the t-rex (although it also uses its mouth in the film, unlike Sobek). 4) In chapter 57 there are numerous creatures belonging to the geological period known as the Permian (299-251 million years ago), some of which are quite interesting. Edaphosaurus was a pelicosaurus dating back to even before the Permian period (the species appears about 303 million years ago, therefore still in the Carboniferous), cousin of the dimetrodon with which it shared the environment and many characteristics, including the showy dorsal sail; unlike its distant relative, however, it was a herbivore. Like the dimetrodon, it appears in an episode of 'Walking with monsters'. The scutosaurus, on the other hand, appeared at the end of the Permian period (about 260 million years ago), and then disappeared with the great mass extinction (together with almost all the living species of that time); it shared its habitat with gorgonopsids, a group of reptile-like mammals of which it was the main prey. Among the gorgonopsids, inostrancevia was the largest known species. Both of these animals appear in the documentary 'Walking with monsters' and in the series 'Primeval'. In chapter 57 many other Permian creatures are mentioned in passing, but it would take too long to list and explain them all, so once again I leave to you the duty to inform yourself about them. 5) Sarcosuchus (whose name means 'carnivorous crocodile'), is a distant ancestor of today's crocodiles, lived around 112 million years ago in present-day Africa and South America, and is one of the largest crocodiles ever to have lived on Earth (if not THE largest): it was almost 12 meters long and weighing up to 8 tons. It also held one of the most powerful bites ever to exist in nature, comparable to that of the tyrannosaurus and surpassed only by creatures such as megalodon and purussaurus. It shared its habitat with the spinosaurus, and it would likely have easily defeated the dinosaur in a fight. Its enormous size has made it appear in many films: it appears in the program 'The most extreme', in the special 'Walking with dinosaurs: chased by dinosaur', in the documentaries 'Planet Dinosaur' and 'Mega Beast', and even in the 2012 animated film 'Dino time'.