Deviation Actions
Description
[I made a soundtrack for this painting, which can be heard here: soundcloud.com/oviraptor-space… ]
North America, morning in the Kimmeridgian Age of the Late Jurassic:
Roused from slumber by the passage of a giant, the little “bird robber,” Ornitholestes, watches silently from the shade. Despite its bulk, the giant's feet are nearly soundless on the earth, cushioned against the shock of its weight, but the little robber's senses are keen indeed, and this time of year the giant makes his presence known with rumbling infrasound and bright display structures as he searches for a mate, driven by genetic imperative.
The giant doesn't see the little robber as food, consuming vast quantities of vegetation instead, but that much mass, those strong limbs, that whip-fast tail are dangerous, and it might draw other, carnivorous giants near with its scent and the signs of its passage. But the little robber is quiet, nimble and swift - perhaps there's some advantage in keeping close to this moving mountain, this giant of the Earth: its great strides flush prey from the bush, its presence attracts insects and other, more substantial morsels to be caught in the little robber's claws, and larger sharp-toothed predators will focus on the giant instead of the little robber. It wouldn't be the first time, if they did: the giant's hide bears the scars of past battles won.
The giant moves slowly, but with the inexorable power of the environmental cycles of which it is a part, in which its kind have evolved; first a drink from the lake, then onward seeking companionship and evolutionary legacy. It's that time of year again. The little robber will follow, for a while.
And in time, deep time, after a full life, the giant's bones will be buried in gravity-drawn sediments, replaced with other minerals, fossilized, unearthed by bipedal mammals, studied and admired, named and renamed: "Deceptive Lizard," "Thunder Lizard," Apatosaurus excelsus, Brontosaurus, sauropod, dinosaur...
[Please don’t use or reproduce without permission, and thanks for viewing, reading and listening!]
