Mesozoic stories from australia

Kunbarrasaurus

103 million years ago (Albian), Queensland

A new day has began in the subtropical forest of Northern Australia and is already filled with many strange calls, one of them includes a giant sauropod called austrosaurus. 

He is about 20 m long and weighs some 6 t, one of the largest animals in this subtropical forest, he can very easily get to the tallest trees with no problem. Other animals that are awake includes a herd of muttaburrasaurus, who are coming towards the lake to take a drink and soon Austrosaurus joins them. 

But there are smaller creatures as well, such as these small feathered elasmarians. Although small they make up for it by being quick and agile. 

Another resident of this forest is awake, deep from the burrow is a lone small ankylosaur called kunbarrasaurus, who is about 2.5 m long and 0.8 m high. He has a dark green body with a pale yellow underbelly, a dark brown armor on his back, legs and head called osteoderms and light green bird like eyes. He like everyone else has come here to take a drink in the morning.

When he is finished drinking he goes to eat ferns and fallen leaves from the trees. However his meal gets interrupted by the mosquitos. Although they pose no threat to the male, they are quite irritating, he goes to the tree to scratch himself, but the annoying insects don't give up.

The irritated ankylosaur gets attention from local baby haliskias, resting up in the tall trees. They are about the size of the human hand and unlike the adults that feed on fish in the open seas, they feed on insects, including mosquitos. The male knows that these pterosaurs aren't a threat so he won't act defensive, and this ends up being a perfect opportunity for both animals and so pterosaurs fly down to feed on mosquitos, while the male rests and relaxes, some of them even rest on top of the male. But once the pterosaur finish, the male resumes feeding on the plants.

He then begins walking out of the forest and goes towards the beach, like he does almost every day. He comes here because the plants and are rich with nutrients and will eat fish that got washed out on the beach to supplement his diet with meat. While walking through the beach he can see a passing flock of pterosaurs in the sky, these are adult Haliskia, with a 4.6 m wide wingspan and all of them are moving towards the open ocean to hunt for fish. But the kunbarrasaurus doesn't draw too much attention to the flying pterosaurs and resumes his search for food.

But he came across something that he hasn't seen on this beach yet and that is an adult female notochelone, a protostegid turtle and very slowly crawls towards the ocean. She came here to nest and it is one of the only times where these turtles would venture out onto the land, while they spend 99% of their life in oceans and only come out when they need to nest. She has a pale green skin, along with a dark green shell for protection.

The male curiously approaches to the moving turtle and sniffs it and keeps looking at it with curiosity. He then tries stand on top of the turtle's shell, he then slightly bites the turtle's small tail. The turtle has a very thick skin and all around well defended body so these bites are nothing more than a minor annoyance and continues moving towards the water and ignores the kunbarrasaurus. When the turtle comes close to the sea, the male ankylosaur decides to leave it be. Back to searching for more food on the beach. 

After some time passes he decides to go back to the forest, but before he can go back he comes across a juvenile megaraptorid on the beach. His species are one of the top predators in this ecosystem and this male has ventured out here looking for an easier prey at the coast. He spots the Kunbarrasaurus and he can very easily run him down. However Kunbarrasaurus is not going to run, far from it, he lies down and gets his unprotected paws under his belly, so that the predator can't reach them. The megaraptorid approaches him, while the Kunbarrasaurus let's out a hissing noises to scare of the megaraptorid away, but the predator is not deterred. 

So he tries to attack him swinging his claws at his neck, but it has no effect and the ankylosaur stays still. It has no effect because the herbivore's entire back is protected by osteoderms. The predator tries to wound him in other areas, with no success. Until he tries to flip the herbivore over to get to his unprotected parts of the body and in response the herbivore swings his tail at the predators face, creating a scar on his face. 

After that the predator finally decides to retreat back into the forest. Although kunbarrasaurs don't have the tail as destructive as ankylosaurids, they are still dangerous, because they have rows of spikes running down their tail on both sides of it. The young predator learned the lesson the hard way never underestimate a herbivore, no matter how small it is.

He comes back to the forest finally and goes to his borrow, lying down and starts sleeping.