Take a journey back to a lost world and go Walking with Dinosaurs. Feel the awesome power of Tyrannosaurus rex and witness the awesome size of Brachiosaurus.
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The most fearsome predator of the Jurassic is watching his prey. Peering through the water, the carnivore locks onto his unwary victim, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. The massive predator leaps out of the water to grab a theropod dinosaur in his jaws. The giant sea monster drags the helpless dinosaur into the depths. His massive jaws made short work of the little predator.
148 MYA, Jurassic Period, North Sea
Under these azure waters, lies the future continent of Europe. Here in the Late Jurassic Period, all that exists here are a few scattered islands. The breakup of the old continents has pushed up the ocean floor and raised sea levels, flooding the lowlands and creating vast shallow seas. Here dinosaurs do not rule, instead there are giant marine reptiles have appeared. They are perfectly adapted for life in these beautiful waters.
Marine reptiles have been on the Earth even before some of the dinosaurs. All of them are air breathers like these Kimmerosaurus that swim around the reef. They weigh about a ton and catch fish called Lepidotes in these waters. There are plenty of other kinds of marine reptiles around here. On the land, there are Plesiochelys struggling back into the water after a night of laying eggs.
These primitive turtles fill some of the same roles as modern day sea turtles. They spend most of their time in the water, and only come to the land to lay their eggs. After that, the turtles drag themselves off of the beach and back into the water. In the water, these turtles are transformed from clumsy shell-backed crawlers to brilliant gliders through the water. Many Triassic sea reptiles were once amphibious, but in time, most of them began to take more to the water.
Their legs that they once used to climb onto land transformed into graceful flippers. They share these seas with other strange creatures like these ammonites called Perisphinctes, flat spiral shaped creatures that usually go with the currents. They use their tentacles to ensnare their prey. Ammonites first appeared during a time long before the dinosaurs and their reptilian neighbors. They are one of the few animals that survived the Permian extinction, which is now no more than a distant memory for these ancient cephalopods.
In addition to the ammonites, there are other creatures drifting around. One of these animals are jellyfish. Like the ammonites, they use their appendages to ensnare their food. These animals live on the rich waters of the northern edge of the ancient Tethys ocean. This sea separates the Earth's two continents.
These would be Laurasia and Gondwana. Once a year, they are the stage for a remarkable natural drama. It starts with a single pregnant Thalassodraco. She's followed by hundreds more of her kind. All of them are gathering to the reef from their open ocean home to give birth.
