chapter 17

However, since there's 9 species and are found in both Canada, part of western USA, and two countries in france and outlived the dinosaurs by about 20 millionyears, they must have been doing something right. Especially since they vary in size, from 5-12 feet. The one here was 12 feet long so top fishing predator." George explained how successful they were. They quickly jotted this down, making sure to catch everything.

"Speaking of crocodiles, that's next." Raynare looks up,

"What kind?" George showed them:

The first looked very much like your classic crocodile. Big too: 11 feet long and nearly 400lbs.

The second was an alligator, but the teeth in its jaws had round hard caps on them, different from the teeth one sees in a normal gator. Size: 8 feet long 165lbs.

Raynare grabbed the crocodile while Rias the alligator. They placed them in the correct habitats then came back. George inspected their work. "Well, Rias: 30. Raynare: 36. Both are 6 points away, since this one was a draw." George said. They shrugged, satisfied that they did alright and then took their seats.

"Now Borealosuchus, meaning Boreal Crocodile, has an interesting history since for a time, a lot of its species were under the name Leidyosuchus. This is called wastebasket taxon, where scientists during the infancy of paleontology would just group together animals that were "the same thing". . . only for later scientists to correct them. This is common faults in the early years of this profession, especially with dinosaurs. Remind me to talk about that the next time I will talk about one from the 1800s to early 1900s." He said. Raynare made a mental note to remind him.

"Thankfully, we now have 6 species of this crocodile, and just like Champsosaurus, it too outlived the dinosaurs by 20 million years. Thanks to being only 11 feet long and nearly 400 lbs, it was able to hibernate, despite it being a mystery how crocodiles survived the K-PG extinction event since there was nuclear winter." He thought out loud and then shook his head. "Off track. Anyway, being that big made it top freshwater predator, feasting on fish, and any small dinosaur that drank too close to the water's edge." George explained. They wrote this all down.

"What is the K-PG extinction event?" Rias asked. "A mass extinction event where all non-avian dinosaurs died out, as well as pterosaurs, marine reptiles, and basically nearly every animal that weighed over 25kg died out. Main cause: giant asteroid size of Mt. Everst hit the earth with more power than every single nuclear weapon combined! Lasted for hundreds of thousands of years. I could go on and on about it, but that's for another day." He summarized the extinction of the non-avian dinosaurs. They also jotted this down, trying not to miss a single detail.

"Next is Brachychampsa, the short crocodile named for its shortened snout and also its teeth. For this I require visual aids." He gets out his bag and starts rummaging around in it. "Here we go!" He showed them two types of croc teeth: one was like a classic croc tooth, the other was a rounded cap. Rias drew the images in her notebook. Raynare asked,

"Why are the teeth like that?"

"Two reasons: to prevent competition with Borealosuchus and other requires a demonstration." He then got out a life size skull of the gator. They girls took a close look at it. He then got a mussel. He placed both on the table, the mussel placed in the back of the jaw and wired it to a button. "Before this demonstration happens, we need some protective gear." He puts on some goggles and gave a pair to both girls. They looked at him with questioning looks. "You'll see what I mean but I don't want. . . any shards to hit us." He also placed down a blast shield. They go behind it. "3, 2 1!" He pressed the button and the moment the jaws came down on the mussel, the shell shattered into shards and the artificial flesh inside (made of playdoh) came out. They were a bit surprised about it. They took the goggles off and examined the mussel. The shell was multiple pieces around the table and floor, while the playdoh made to resemble the internal parts of it had bite marks made by the skull.

"Well… that was something." Rias commented. "Now I know why it had that kind of teeth: to crush shells of mussels, maybe turtles too." Raynare added.

"Correct: while it indeed did eat mussels, it mainly preyed on the turtles which are plentiful." George said, commending her for her educated guess. She smiles.

"Ok next is a famous pterosaur but not the one most people would expect for this time period. Also, the color for this one should be familiar." He pulled out the pterosaur model.

Rather than being in a flying pose, it was instead on the ground, wings folded up. It has black wings, body like a cloak, white skull-like head, and scythe like beak. Ria's eyes widened and she examined it,

"This looks like. . .the Grim Reaper!" Rias was a bit afraid. "That thing is like a boogyman to Devils!" Raynare snickered, took the pterosaur, placed it in what she thought was the correct spot and came back. George inspected her work,

"Gasp! For once, you placed it in the wrong spot!" She placed it in in the Upland Forest instead of either Broadleaf Forest or Fern Prairie. "I'm afraid this will cost you a few points, dropping you back down to 33." George said. She groans and marched back to her seat, upset over loss.

Now this pterosaur is based off of the famous Quetzalcoatlus, named after the famous Aztec God Quetzalcotal, this pterosaur is often depicted being this big." He snapped his fingers and a scale model of a normal one showed up : 10 meter wingspan, nearly 6 meters tall.

Jaw dropped. "How can something big as a plane gets off the ground that was once alive?!" Raynare yelled, taken by surprise by the scale of it.