Chapter 62: Found it!

Mitch was examining the tooth in front of him. It was a large tooth that certainly belonged to the lower jaw, probably one of the incisors, one of those used to tear flesh and in fact were continually lost and replaced. He and his companions had found plenty of them since they'd entered the forest. Not just teeth, but also scales, footprints, marks on trees, everything; that spinosaurus had left several traces behind it. Such finds, although they might seem small, were actually extraordinary. With them he and Max had been able to examine the animal's DNA, discovering that it had many genetic traits in common with the spinosaurs. It was clear that it had evolved from them. It was the definitive proof that the two species were part of the same family. It was a sensational discovery: until now it was believed that the last spinosaurid to appear in the world was the Spinosaurus aegyptiacus and it was thought that its closest relative was the oxalaia or the irritator. Instead, they now knew that the family had much more recent members on the time scale. As the first researchers to study it, Mitch and Max had jointly named the new animal 'Spinosaurus superior'. It had been almost a month since Mitch had decided to leave to look for the spinosaurus: he, Max, Jamie and a group of his old students had been in the forest for at least two weeks now. They had sailed up the river in a boat and then explored the area where the spinosaurus was last seen. Unfortunately they had not been able to find it: following the traces it had left, they had discovered that it had returned to the river and it had probably gone away. Its behavior was normal: that area was the haunt of a group of torvosaurs, and even if by now they had forced to change territory, the scientists couldn't expected that the spinosaurus remain near of such a dangerous area. After all, it'd almost died there once already. Every creature with a minimum of common sense would immediately have left the area and flee to safer lands. It was likely that if it hadn't been for the little Jocelyne's presence it would have fled that territory much sooner. The traces it had left, however, had been significant in understanding the animal. Even if Mitch didn't like his father, he had enough dignity to admit that it was thanks to his extraordinary researcher abilities if they had managed to reconstruct quite well what had happened from the night the kidnappers took the little girl into the forest until she was found. Mitch, Max, Jamie and all the students had been amazed at how clever this creature seemed: not only it brought food to the little girl, but it also made long journeys as if it were looking for her family! They had even found its tracks leading up a hill, a clear sign that it was trying to get an overview from above. Mitch didn't doubt that if the city were closer the spinosaurus wouldn't have hesitated to bring the child home. But the distance had made it give up since the dangers were too many. This meant that it was aware of its limits and that it weighed the risks very well, another sign of great intelligence. Mitch couldn't say for sure since he didn't have a live specimen to test, but he was pretty sure that the spinosaurus' IQ had to be roughly on the same level as a magpie or crow, which made it one of the smartest animals ever discovered. They had then found traces of its paths when it tried to escape the torvosaurs. From them they had guessed how difficult it had become for that dinosaur to hunt while the predators sought it. What did this mean? It meant that it cared more for the girl than for its own survival! It was a level of empathy never seen in any animal. Very often the animals even abandoned their own cubs if they were really at risk, but the spinosaurus instead refused to go away until it found the girl's family! There were very few animals that behaved this way, and generally they all possessed great intelligence, which further increased the hypothesis that the spinosaurus' IQ was among the highest after the one of humans. When there was nothing left to examine in that part of the forest, Mitch and the others had returned to the boat to look for the spinosaurus along the river. Unfortunately, however, tracking down an aquatic animal was very difficult. After weeks of research they still hadn't found any sign of the spinosaurus. They had a helicopter aboard, and if they had used it surely they could have broadened their search, but gasoline was limited and there was no way to refuel in the middle of the forest; they therefore wanted at least to wait to find a visible sign of the spinosaurus passage. Mitch looked at the tooth in his hands. Regardless of that animal's intelligence, he couldn't believe that such a huge creature could exist. From the video it looked really gigantic and the tooth proved it: it was too long to belong to a creature less than twenty meters in length. That spinosaurus was a true giant among giants. "Is everything okay? You've been watching it for half an hour" Mitch stopped looking at the tooth and turned towards the cabin entrance: Jamie had entered and was looking at him with amusement. "I was just admiring this particular conformation in more detail. The shape is clearly that of a Spinosaurus aegyptiacus' tooth, but the root is longer and deeper, denoting a more powerful resistance to the force of the bite. Also, if you look closely, the part back of the tooth is serrated, even if not very much, therefore it's suitable for shredding and slaughtering meat. Similar conformations are typical of large predators such as the tyrannosaurus. Consequently, it is evident that the animal we are looking for can be surely defined as a superpredator..." Jamie nodded as she looked at the tooth her old teacher was showing her. She was fascinated by all that information, since she knew they could be considered real anomalies in nature. In fact, large predators generally didn't develop intelligence: they were very smart, of course, but not at too high levels. Having a huge body and several weapons at their disposal, they didn't need to get smarter. The tyrannosaurus, for example, despite being one of the most intelligent dinosaurs, couldn't hold the comparison to a dolphin or a chimpanzee. The only exception to this rule was killer whales, which were extremely intelligent despite their large size (although when compared to other ocean mammals like the sperm whale or marine reptiles like the mosasaur, they looked quite small). But if the spinosaurus they were looking for really had such intelligence and at the same time enough strength and size to be called a superpredator, then it too would have been included in this exception. Suddenly Max's voice shook them: "Hey, son! Come out immediately!" In normal circumstances Mitch would have reacted very angry to the word 'son', but not this time; he knew Max very much and he knew that his father wouldn't have bothered him if it wasn't really important. Therefore he rushed out of his cabin without thinking twice, followed by Jamie. When he came out he saw that all his old students were crowding to one side of the ship and that they were looking something. Mitch reached out to find what they were looking at and what he saw surprised him: a huge crocodile skeleton! A Sarcosuchus imperator, the undisputed king of the river! But the bones had been broken in several places, which meant that the animal had been eaten. This meant that there was another superpredator in that part of the river! "Let's go there, now!" Two lifeboats were quickly put into the water and rapidly reached the shore. As soon as they were on the ground Mitch ran to the bones and placed the tooth he had examined where there were the scars probably left to the sarcosuchus' killer. They matched perfectly! Those were the remains of the spinosaurus' meal! "Prepare the helicopter now!" he ordered. Now that he knew the spinosaurus was still in the river, he would have flied over it until he found it, even for days if it was necessary! The boat couldn't travel beyond a certain speed, but a helicopter could. With it they could cover tens of kilometers in a short time. On top of that, the helicopter they had was one of the best they had, an army veteran vehicle the university had bought still in perfect condition. Max and nearly all of his students remained on the ship. Only he and Jamie boarded the helicopter; she was in fact one of the few who knew how to correctly dose the anesthetic, and he... well, he was leader of that expedition. Oh, and then of course there was the pilot. The helicopter took off and followed the river, rapidly covering the distance that the ship would take days to complete. A long time passed and they saw nothing, but they noticed more remains on the shore, a sign that a huge predator had passed by. Eventually, after nearly six hours of flying, they finally noticed a giant creature on the shore. "Over there!" They had found the spinosaurus.