HOME | DD

Description
66 million years after a certain asteroid not having hit the Earth, the world has since shown various different faces over the millions of years. Here we observe a scenery from the eastern temperate forests of North America. A Calloceratosaurus carolinensis pursues a Vertigotherium americanus. The former is a large five meter long megaraptoran that comes from a lineage of successful hunters of South America. However, with the formation of isthmus, just over a couple million years ago, they migrated to North America. Despite overlapping, somewhat, with the hunting grounds of the native north american predatory dromaeosaurs and oviraptorids, they play more comfortably the role of large robust theropodal predator, which has been occupied by tyrannosaurs up until their extinction in the continent back in the Oligocene. Although the Calloceratosaurus is a swift hunter capable of taking down herbivorous dinosaurs, this one pursues a large active euarchotan. The Vertigotherium is one of the largest north american mammals at this point in time, reaching up to 1,5 meters long in the largest males, with females generally being smaller. They are omnivorous, but mostly eat plants. They retain a largely ungulate-like physique and have, interestingly, precocial young. They have also convergently evolved a near-ruminant like digestive system as well. Genetic analysis curiously place these mammals as sister to primatomorphs. These relatively big mammals probably evolved in the wake of extinctions that happened over time, such as the extinction of thescelosaurs in North America, leading the evolution of mammals that could occupy these small-sized herbivorous guilds. The colder and drier conditions that the late Cenozoic continuously provided also promoted the growth and diversification of mammals over non-maniraptoran dinosaurs and other terrestrial reptiles, which served them well in diversifying not just in North America but elsewhere, creating this interesting mixed coexistence between large dinosaurs and small to mid-sized terrestrial mammals over many environments of the globe.

Description
66 million years after a certain asteroid not having hit the Earth, the world has since shown various different faces over the millions of years. Here we observe a scenery from the eastern temperate forests of North America. A Calloceratosaurus carolinensis pursues a Vertigotherium americanus. The former is a large five meter long megaraptoran that comes from a lineage of successful hunters of South America. However, with the formation of isthmus, just over a couple million years ago, they migrated to North America. Despite overlapping, somewhat, with the hunting grounds of the native north american predatory dromaeosaurs and oviraptorids, they play more comfortably the role of large robust theropodal predator, which has been occupied by tyrannosaurs up until their extinction in the continent back in the Oligocene. Although the Calloceratosaurus is a swift hunter capable of taking down herbivorous dinosaurs, this one pursues a large active euarchotan. The Vertigotherium is one of the largest north american mammals at this point in time, reaching up to 1,5 meters long in the largest males, with females generally being smaller. They are omnivorous, but mostly eat plants. They retain a largely ungulate-like physique and have, interestingly, precocial young. They have also convergently evolved a near-ruminant like digestive system as well. Genetic analysis curiously place these mammals as sister to primatomorphs. These relatively big mammals probably evolved in the wake of extinctions that happened over time, such as the extinction of thescelosaurs in North America, leading the evolution of mammals that could occupy these small-sized herbivorous guilds. The colder and drier conditions that the late Cenozoic continuously provided also promoted the growth and diversification of mammals over non-maniraptoran dinosaurs and other terrestrial reptiles, which served them well in diversifying not just in North America but elsewhere, creating this interesting mixed coexistence between large dinosaurs and small to mid-sized terrestrial mammals over many environments of the globe.