acepredator

Fear has two meanings Forget Everything And Run Face Everyone And Rise - Zig Ziglar Over two weeks have passed since the Shadow Army has taken over parts of the floodplain. Since then the Plateback Hunters have brought down three young sauropods, and everyone under Koda’s rule is, for once, content. The Plains Gang is still a major force on the eastern side of the Great River, but they are no longer invulnerable. Perhaps they will head further south to their stronghold. They certainly have not made any attempts to reclaim the occupied parts of their territory, and at any rate they are at a relative disadvantage on this terrain. The

In the dead of night, Black Eyes is on the move. With his old den destroyed, he must quickly relocate to one of the other ones. The Armoured Stalker has three other dens he can move to scattered throughout Mistral Canyon. But there are no guarantees that they haven’t been destroyed, or occupied by some other animal. If there is a squatter that’s small enough to be prey, Black Eyes will kill it. If the squatter is too big to overpower, he will have to move to another burrow. The worst-case scenario is that all of his burrows are occupied, in which case he will have to go without a proper den for possibly weeks. He’ll have t

Hateg is a large enough island that different parts of it belong to different Titan Striders. While these great pterosaurs have access to all of the island, and beyond, each individual has one core area they rely on as a home, a place where their rule is unchallenged even by other members of their species. Dracarys rules the eastern coastline and an adjacent river valley. Another big female rules in the heart of the island. A young male-female pair dominates the northern coastline. And at the island’s southeastern coast, there lurks a cunning upstart king. He is Vlad, a young male newly starting his own territory, and still growing int

Since she last brought down the adolescent Lesser Boxhead, Phaedra has been feeding well. But not all is well in her world. Even though she, at two and a half tons, is the second largest predator on this floodplain, she is still very much an underdog. Until she reaches her full size she’s vulnerable, and even afterwards she would be badly outnumbered by her smaller relatives. Great Bladejaws may be the most powerful Morrison predators, but they are also the rarest, enough to render their size and mobility advantage useless. A gang of Common Bladejaws in its prime is a match for any predator in the Morrison. Until Phaedra reaches her fu

While Venatrix may be the high queen of Tyrant’s Fort and its surrounding territory, she is not the only Great Tyrant-beast in the immediate area. There is second female who is younger and smaller, as well as juveniles and subadults from previous years. Then, of course, there are the males. And in this part of the Karoo Mountains, there is one male that reigns supreme. Magnus. The King of the Karoo. This huge male lords over a massive section of the Karoo Mountains, and his territory overlaps with that of several adult females, especially Venatrix. There is a good reason for this: before the old queen was overthrown by her own daughter

As the morning wears on, more and more of the snow cover starts to vanish. This exposes the plants, and soon the sunniest slopes are being grazed once more by large herds of herbivores. But in these altitudes, where the growth season is relatively short, such concentrations of grazers can easily destroy the alpine vegetation community. Or they would, if not for a menacing presence that keeps them on edge and on the move. One animal has been waiting for the midday heat, and the arrival of the first great herds, more than any other. Up in this section of the mountains lies Tyrant’s Fort, a steep hill with a jagged peak, where centuries o

The death of the Greater Leafcleaver ram at the jaws of Dracarys may be a loss to his herd, but it’s a boon to the opportunists. Hateg has just one species as supreme ruler, but right under the reigning Titan Striders, there are plenty of lesser flesh-eaters that, though nowhere near as fearsome, still crave fresh meat. Normally, these mesopredators have to satisfy themselves with small fry, but on some occasions they will stumble across a Titan Strider at work, and then the banquet is set. A small flock of Balkan Sickle-Runners have been watching the queen’s hunt for its entire duration. While these birdlike creatures are omnivo

A three-way standoff is developing at the edge of the riparian. It’s a showdown between bastards: a would-be traitor to the ruling bladejaw gang, angry insurgent Plateback Hunters hoping to take over these hunting grounds, and a rogue assassin eking out a living. The cause of the conflict is the carcass of a young common cabletail, killed by Rebellis the previous day and discovered today by Umbra, the adolescent female Bush-Lurker. Umbra knows that discretion is the better part of valour. She is the largest combatant here, but she’s outnumbered, and that puts her at risk. In addition, she operates entirely on her own, leaving her

South Africa, 265 Million Years Ago For the first time in months, water falls from the sky as rain rather than snow. On these highland mountains, far south of the tropics, winter brings four months of bitter cold and long, dark nights. Animals must find whatever food and shelter they can, or succumb to the elements. But now, at last, the hard times are starting to end. In a few weeks, the alpine lakes and rivers will start to thaw out, and meltwater will soak the earth and enlarge the marshes. The Karoo Mountains are coming back to life. A closer look at this landscape reveals some startling differences compared to the world of the Quaterna