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YellowPanda2001 — The Life of a Amphicoelias #01
#dinosaurs #forest #nest #paleoart #sauropods
Published: 2019-08-10 08:54:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 919; Favourites: 21; Downloads: 2
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Ep.01: Left to HatchEarly foggy morning... 150 million years ago, in what is now Colorado in the Morrison Formation. A nearby sauropod nest is about to burst with tiny necks and heads. Its an Amphicoelias altus nest. A female bursts out of her egg. We'll be calling her Amanda. As the tiny sauropod breathes her first large gulp of air out of her white cocoon, she notices a large welcoming shadow. Is it her mom? No, indeed it is a sauropod, but a Cathetosaurus lewisi. Amphicoelias is unique among diplodocids, as they don't live in huge herds. They live in small groups of 3-15 individuals, and, when females need to lay her eggs, they move into the depths of the forest and lay them at the edge; she abandons the herd and will keep protecting the nest for the next months, a trait she shares with apatosaurines. However, when Amanda sneaks to see if anything is around, mom is nowhere to be seen... and in truth, she will never be seen. The baby Amphicoelias have found themselves in a unprecedented situation, one that can spell doom for them, unless they keep moving and benefit with the randomly good oportunities the Jurassic jungles provide. The babies are on their own.
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Comments: 7
Isn't Amphicoelias now called Maraapunisaurus?
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Amphicoelias fragillimus is Maraapunisaurus. Amphicoelias altus remains as Amphicoelias.
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I like this, but I feel like if you do another one of these you should make it completely different, possibly with a different kind of dinosaur or (if you're only doing sauropods) a completely different fossil formation.
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I realize people would say that. The thing is, I just really like the Morrison Formation setting, and different times and different places within the same formation display different environments. For example, 153 mya in Wyoming, we had apatosaurines and a huge variety of other diplodocids more than other sauropods. 150 mya in Colorado you can see a greater variety of other sauropods, specially camarasaurids and rebbachisaurids. Amphicoelias represents a lost old lineage of diplodocids and is, subsequently, the last surviving diplodocid in the formation (with the exception of maybe the enigmatic Atlantosaurus and later species of Brontosaurus, such as B.excelsus, the latter of which wasn't found in Colorado anyways), so the environment is slightly different, specially in terms of fauna.
And I really wanted to show the life of yet another diplodocid, but yes I still plan it to make it in a way it feels different and not just a repetition of The Life of a Brontosaurus, but in general its still going to follow the basic sauropod life cycle plan, but I will try and make modifications to make it different.
Also, if another The Life of a... story is made, it doesn't need to strictly follow sauropods, in fact any prehistoric animal can be represented. I just didn't wanted to leave the diplodocids or the Morrison Formation just yet.
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