Speculative Evolution Wiki
Speculative Evolution Wiki
Advertisement
P00381

The megalosaur, Megalosaurus modernus, is a surviving megalosaurid from Madagascar in The New Dinosaurs: An Alternative Evolution. It lives in the Madagascar lowland forests. A species of dwarf megalosaur inhabits the smaller Seychelles islands.

The boughs and evergreen leaves of the tropical forest filter the sunlight into fine steamy beams that throw a dappled pattern down into the gloom of the jungle floor. This is the domain of the brightly-colored birds, the pterodactyl pterosaurs, with their larger wings, being banished to the more open spaces above. Suddenly the raucous chattering of the birds is hushed, and a deep still silence falls in the shadowy forest. The birds have sensed something dangerous. The light patterns ply upon the leathery surface of something dark and indistinct in the sparse undergrowth. With a gasp of air from cavernous lungs, a huge animal rises to its hind feet, pushing itself up on massive legs, steadying itself with clawed forefeet. The great eyes, gummy after sleep and torpor, blink and look around. The huge head contains only enough intelligence to tell the megalosaur that it is hungry again. Slowly it crushes its way through the shadows to the decaying corpse of an herbivorous non-avian dinosaur, scattering the scavenging birds and placental mammals, and resumes the meal that it abandoned days before.

Advertisement