Well folks, we're coming close to the end of the Rivers and Swamps section in regards to Skull Island's creatures. Just one more chapter to go! I am rather dissapointed though, that I'm not getting nearly as many reviews of any kind as I thought I would, and most of them are from the same person.
Speaking of which..Tallacus: Thanks for all your reviews! They mean a lot. :) As I said, it'll be a while until I get to the chapter that's just about the Venatosaurs, but they do make an appearance in this one you'll be glad to know.
So, here's Chapter Six!
Chapter Six.
For 150 million years, pterosaurs had ruled the prehistoric skies, swooping gracefully over the heads of the dinosaurs in all sorts of amazing shapes and sizes. But all that began to change in the Early Cretaceous, when the birds finally began taking to the air in earnest.
Faster, more agile, better able to perch on limbs and quickly take off from the ground, with far less delicate wings and being more efficient fliers, they gradually outcompeted the great flying reptiles in a long, painful struggle. By the time a gigantic asteroid slammed into what is now the Yucatan region of Mexico, there were only a handful of kinds left.
But against all odds, on Skull Island something of the last pterosaurs survived, in the form of a creature called Axiciacephalus. These pterosaurs had avoided the harsh competition from birds in a practical, but bizarre way. They'd become totally flightless.
Of course, they now looked utterly unlike their extinct ancestors without wings. To respectfully paraphrase George Orwell, "All the creatures of Skull Island are weird-looking, but some creatures look weirder than others."
As the dawn began to turn the sky gray, one male Axiciacephalus carefully wove and slipped out of the thick, tangled roots of a strangler fig growing near a large hill stream. The tree that the parasitic plant had killed as it grew was long rotted away, and now the flightless pterosaur used the heart of the tangle as a home, where he and his mate could sleep in safety. Stepping out into the growing dawn, the true strangeness of his slender form was now fully revealed.
Four feet long and weighing about as much as a mid-sized dog, he had a large head with huge crocodilian jaws, both filled with needle sharp interlocking teeth for catching fish. It in turn was connected to the body by a fairly short but tubular neck. Instead of wings, his forelimbs were now small mittens of flesh, almost like miniature plesiosaur flippers had been attached. The rest of the body was a stocky, but drawn-out cone, ending in a stiff thick traffic-cone tail.
Finally, he walked on long, scaly legs like a heron, but also had webbed feet like a duck's. His feet and shins were black-brown in color, while the rest of his body was a dull orange-tan, bearing emerald-green bands running along the head and neck, with bold chestnut stripes on his back and flanks.
There was the sound of his mate coming through the roots too now, and he looked over his shoulder at her, regarding her form with his blackish eyes. The female looked very much like him as she stretched in the growing light and showed her pointed teeth in a yawn, except the small pouch she bore under her jaw was a bright yellow, with her mate's being a brick red. The tip of her beak too, didn't have as sharply curving a point as his did.
He greeted her, giving a sort of harsh cooing purr, and she did the same in response, walking up to him. A pair of passing Jackson's amber woodpeckers, foot-long birds with amber plumage, bushy crests, and black leading edges to their wings, answered with calls like a squeeze-bulb horn. Like the Denham's dark-wing, they too had evolved to fill the woodpecker niche.
Paying no attention, the male repeated his greeting, with the female responding a second time. Then, the two pterosaurs opened their toothy mouths, and gently held each other's bills in a tender moment of bonding. Just like their ancestors had done and birds of prey did now, Axiciacephalus mated for life, and had strong emotional relationships.
This morning ritual was a way of maintaining that relationship, and after several minutes of bill holding and looking into each other's eyes, they separated. Then, both animals stood parallel to each other. Facing towards the stream, the male began to gently lean against his mate's side, and she responded in kind with gentle pressure of her own.
This leaning behavior was an intimate form of physical contact, only carried out by pairs that trusted each other and had a pledged relationship between them. All the time, the two carefully used their beak tips to groom each other, running them through their mate's hair-like scales.
The tender ritual done, the two spilt apart, and then they both got down to the serious task of trail maintenance. Most animals that live in aquatic or wetland environments are very graceful, fast swimmers in the water, but are poor runners on land. The Axiciacephalus was not an exemption to this evolutionary rule either. His long legs allowed him to take much longer strides than a goose or cormorant, and his smaller size allowed him to slip and jink through underbrush more easily than his predators could.
All the same, he was still an awkward runner on dry land, and his best survival strategies were to either retreat into a tangle too dense for an attacker to enter, or even better leap into the water. In these types of situations, every second counted, and so Axiciacephalus constructed a network of smooth dirt paths, kept clean of leaf litter and debris, that radiated from the sleeping nest to the water, like half a bicycle wheel.
While his mate handled one on the left, he went to a central trail heading towards the large creek about fifty yards away, and went down it slowly. Leaves fell like anything in the rainforest, and he used his tough webbed feet to scrape away any that had fallen or been blown over the path during the night. Sticks were picked up in his beak and then flicked aside, while pebbles were also scraped off.
A small flock of hill mynas, raven black with heavy orange bills and yellow nape wattles, was on the path, calmly taking wing and flying to some low trees as the pterosaur approached them, stopping to get a drink at the creek. Now that that part of his chores was done, he returned to the strangler fig, where his mate was now working on clearing away her second trail. He immediately followed suit, doing two more before all six were bare once again. Now, the pair had that much more of a chance of escape if pursued.
Each Axiciacephalus was ready to go fishing now, and the flightless pterosaurs preferred to hunt alone, so as not to compete with each other and also to stay undetected by predators. So, with a final exchange of bows and nasal purrs, both reptiles took their leave of each other, the male heading upstream along one of their trails.
Around 150 feet away, it led him to a shallow part of the rushing creek, and he waded shin deep into the cold water, carefully searching it for fish or frogs. Going to a flat stone, he stuck his beak under the surface and flipped it over, seeing if any invertebrate prey were underneath. To his delight, two clouded long-clawed prawns, each about four inches long, scuttled out. Found only on the island, they got their name from the blotches of gray, black, and rust covering their bodies, providing good camouflage against predators. The flightless pterosaur caught each one with a fast dart of his head, crunching and swallowing in satisfaction.
Staying near the left bank, the Axiciacephalus slowly, ever so slowly, walked upstream for a hundred yards, still-hunting in the manner of a heron. On one protruding rock was a Thomas' torrent frog, another species that lived only on the island. This one, a male, had been signaling with his lavender hind feet and croaking, proclaiming ownership of his territory and also trying to attract females.
This time, the grayish frog attracted some unwanted attention instead. As the pterosaur's head darted forward, the torrent frog leapt into the water, trying to lose his attacker. The Axiciacephalus wasn't discouraged in the least, and took a prone position right away, swimming like a cormorant after his fleeing prey with back exposed. Within seconds, he'd chased down the frog and impaled his grey body on rows of needle teeth, bolting the victim down.
Rising back to his feet, the reptile continued walking through the shallows, scanning for anything edible. Now he began flicking one of his diamond shaped flippers to the side every so often as he carefully put one foot in front of the other, hoping the sudden movement would flush hidden fish from cover. Within five minutes, the strategy bore fruit.
As the Axiciacephalus flicked his flipper again, the movement disturbed a Jaguar freshwater flounder, about 11 inches long. Colored and spotted like its cat namesake, with gold-brown scales, the Jaguar freshwater flounder belonged to a group of flatfish that, like the freshwater stingrays of the Amazon and Orinoco Rivers, had evolved dramatic physiological adaptations to live in Skull Island's waterways. As meek predators of shrimps, aquatic insects, worms, and small fish, their camouflage though, the only defense they had, was of small use against the other fierce predators in the large rivers and swamps. So, the freshwater flounders now lived in the fast hill streams and creeks, where they were relatively safe and had evolved into several different species.
When pressed, a flounder can swim as fast as any trout, and the jaguar flounder spurted off the bottom, trying to get to the deeper water. But with his long, thin shins, the pterosaur was also fast in the shallows, and with a lunge, gigged the fish with the pointed tip of his beak. The flounder made a good breakfast, and the Axiciacephalus soon added to that with yet another Skull Island native, this one being a Satanic river frog, so named because of its bright crimson skin and black limbs, not to mention blazing green eyes.
Still hungry and tiring of still-hunting, the flightless reptile decided to resort to his forte; pursuing and catching fish underwater like an anhinga or cormorant. Moving away from the bank until the water was soon up to his hips, the Axiciacephalus dove under, flicking his flippers against his side and kicking with his long legs for power. His nostrils sealed, and his eyes were covered by a clear membrane or third eyelid, allowing him to see prey underwater as he swam. The water was fast, and cold, but he didn't mind. He just made sure to stay out of the main current's force whenever he could, and his body shunted warm blood away from non-vital regions.
With a large lung capacity and extra air sacs like his distant bird relatives, he could stay underwater for as long as 10-12 minutes, although he generally went only half that long between breaths. His short, fuzzy, hair-like scales also provided some minor insulation from the cold. This realm of rushing water, of gravel and sand, streams of bubbles and worn brown logs, rapids, eddies, whitewater, all brilliantly illuminated by the sun-this was his home to a degree that even the fig tree could never match. The stream was his song.
Elation is a reward built in by nature because it motivates animals to keep on doing what's good for their species. The Axiciacephalus swam submerged not just to feed, but because it gave him pleasure. He liked feeling the current against his body. He liked the feeling of power and grace he got as he moved his limbs and slipped like an otter through the bubbly water. He liked looking for the dark, small outlines of fish against the sunlight. And it gave him pleasure to catch one.
As he swam, he stopped to poke at some dead, rotting leaves that had collected in a small depression. Out came a Rufus stream shrimp, about the length of a man's thumb. As it jerked backwards, the diving pterosaur grabbed it, and then took his snack back to the surface, where he promptly ate the shrimp. Taking another breath, the Axiciacephalus returned, rooting out two more Rufus stream shrimp, which underwent the same demise as the first. After that, there was nothing, and he moved on.
Fish were fairly spread out in these kinds of habitats, and the diving pterosaur had to inspect every last place where fish might be seeking shelter out of the current. Taking another breath, he dove again, and went to some large boulders that stuck above the surface. Their downstream sides were great places for fish to rest, and he quickly found a Shagfish, 9 inches long and colored burnt orange with three black bands, partly hidden in the sand. Although it was built almost like a loaf of bread, the Shagfish quickly leapt up with deceptive speed and darted away. The Axiciacephalus was faster again though, and caught the orangish fish, gulping it down like a crocodile at the surface in his spiky jaws.
It was midmorning now, and the pterosaur tirelessly kept at his hunting. Up ahead was another flat slab of rock, a potential hiding place for prey that just begged to be checked out. This one was too big to possibly flip over though, so he just probed under it with his toothy beak. Suddenly, a golden yabby, an endemic crayfish named after close relatives in Australia, fled out into the open. The reptile caught and ate it easily.
Taking another breath, he went to investigate another large depression filled with dead leaves. His poking yielded a Hasselt's catfish, 7 inches long that had been hiding there until nightfall. It too, was promptly seized. Further probing uncovered a mocha brown Watts' rope eel, about 10 inches in length and bearing markings like-well, like a woven rope. Eels are very fast swimmers indeed, and the diving pterosaur was run on a merry chase for a few moments before he was able to clamp down on the eel's tail and position it in his toothy jaws for swallowing headfirst.
At the surface, the Axiciacephalus rested for a brief while now after eating the eel in the slower waters near the right bank, idly watching a mixed flock of Asian fairy-bluebirds, green broadbills, straw-headed bulbuls, and blue-crowned hanging parrots as they fed on the ripe berries of two trees growing near the far bank. With them were some fruit-eating Trident chameleons, handsome green Martial parrots, and the maroon-red gliding lizards known as Alatusaurus, all endemic to the island. With so much fruit for the taking, the animals didn't bother each other as they fed and fluttered.
After taking a breather for a few minutes, he dove again to search out a few more fish. The cold water was becoming too much for even him now, and he wanted to get a full crop of fish soon, so he could soak up some sun on a log or rock slab. Fortunately, the sun's bright light illuminated the stream like a baseball stadium now, making his efforts to detect fish even easier.
Soon, that light revealed to him another freshwater flounder lying on the gravel. Belonging to a different species called Kyle's black-speckled freshwater flounder, its gray body, mottled with dark tan and black, helped hide it in plain sight. The Axiciacephalus though, wasn't so easily fooled, and swiftly grabbed the flatfish behind the gills.
The foot-long flounder was undeniably a good meal, and the diving reptile's crop was close to full by now. Diving again, he suddenly got the chance to put all his swimming and hunting skills to practice. Silhouetted against the light was a feeding school of another fish species only found on Skull Island, which would become to be known as Boyen's fusilier cichlids. Eaters of plankton and insect larvae, the six-inch long fish had pointed heads with large copper eyes and elongate electric blue bodies with gray-pink bellies. Their dorsal and anal fins were handsomely backswept, blue-black in color, and the tail fin was fluorescent orange with black edges.
These stream-dwelling cichlids were clearly built for speed and agility, and they promised to be hard work for any pursuing Axicicephalus to capture. The male was fast and agile though, and immediately shot towards the thirty-strong school. The fusilier cichlids saw him coming, and fled, twisting, dodging, and turning through the greenish water at breakneck speed.
Like an otter after a trout, the flightless pterosaur would lock onto one of the electric blue fish, maneuvering with amazing precision as he tried to trap it against the bottom or chase it into the shallows of the stream where it could be more easily caught. Sometimes he'd try to corner one of the fish against the surface, leading to electrifying moments where the desperate cichlid would leap out of the water, the reptile's spiked jaws shooting out after it in a big splash.
Sometimes one of the agile fish escaped, but several times the Axiciacephalus rose to the surface with a Boyen's fusilier cichlid in his jaws. He pursued the school for eight minutes, catching as many fish during that time, until he was finally satiated. And nor had he been the only predator to dine on fusilier cichlid.
As a trio of the fish had fled from him along the stream bottom, they'd suddenly stumbled open a small sunken log that sheltered a waiting Aspiscimex. Rushing out, the 22-inch distant relative of centipedes grabbed one of the blue fish around the chest with her sharp forelegs and pinned it to the gravel.
Although it didn't have venom like other neopedes, Aspiscimex did have razor-sharp slicing jaw plates as its weapons. And without any ceremony, she promptly used them to cut the fish's throat. At nearly a third of her length, the Boyen's fusilier cichlid was a very good catch, and the neopede swam back with this trophy to the log, where she soon started in on a feast that would last the rest of the day.
As for the pterosaur, he'd had a good morning of fishing, and decided to find a good place to sit and digest his crop full of fish in the warm sun. Rising to the surface again, he breathed and slowly swam upriver, feeling the warm sun on his back while he looked for a nice sunbathing site.
It was approaching noon now, and the creatures that had practically driven his kind out of the air, the birds, were flying and feeding everywhere, their bright plumage standing out against the green canvas of the jungle. Greater racket-tailed drongos sallied forth from their posts, grabbing insects like dragonflies out of the air, and plucking crawling ones like beetles from twigs. Red-bearded bee-eaters, lovely dark green birds with red throats and foreheads went about the same activity, giving chuckling calls as if insect catching was the most joyous thing in the world. Red carrion parrots squawked and flapped as they fed on the remains of a large lungfish named Panderichthyis, and a male Asian paradise flycatcher, with a black head, ivory body, and most of all two gorgeous white tail feathers three times longer than he was, flew out like a living comet to grab a damselfly.
A white-collared kingfisher, teal green above with a white collar, breast, and belly, plunged into the clear water, coming back up with a common barb. As the Axiciacephalus passed under an overhanging tree, he casually noted the osprey perched on it, eating a tinfoil barb that he'd just caught. In a big flowering hibiscus bush, gray-breasted spiderhunters, olive-backed sunbirds, emerald green Brightbirds, blue-crowned hanging parrots, and a Honey tongue chameleon all imbibed the sweet nectar from the scarlet flowers.
The pterosaur had no interest in nectar or insects. But he did find what he was looking for just as quickly as the birds had. There was a smaller creek going into the larger one on the right bank, and close to that was a nice wide sandbar, an excellent resting site for him.
Swimming over, the Axiciacephalus stood up, and sniffed with cautious interest as he stood in the shallows. At only four feet long and weighing about as much as a mid-sized dog, he didn't have much hope if a bigger predator attacked him on land before he could get to the water. His spiked teeth were certainly weapons to be respected, but many potential predators like Venatosaurus, Foteodon, Dinocanisaurus, and young Vastatosaurus rexes also had armored skin to boot, meaning that they were unlikely to notice or care.
The only sign of predators was the two day-old scent of where a group of adolescent Vastatosaurs had come here to drink, and they were probably long gone by now. The freshest scent and tracks of all theland animals were from this morning-but the pterosaur could tell that it was from a herd of Ligocristus, totally harmless duckbills. In fact, sometimes he'd even swim or walk among the plant-eaters while they crossed a creek or drank, catching any fish the giants flushed from cover.
The Ligocristus had also left behind some droppings, which were now surrounded by all sorts of lovely butterflies. As the Axiciacephalus stepped out onto the sand flat, the disturbed insects fluttered off before and around him in a rainbow of colors. He gave himself a few quick shakes to remove excess water, than squatted down on the warm sand a couple yards from the edge. Facing the forest at an angle, the gangly reptile sat back on his furred haunches, belly full, mind peaceful and content as he soaked up the now noonday sun.
The butterflies flapped and swirled peacefully around his seated crocodilian form, which gave him even more pleasure. Although the Axiciacephalus didn't possess anything like the refined, civilized human appreciation for beauty or the ability to find it in his world, he was still a fairly smart animal, and could see color just as well as any bird or primate. And he did know, dimly, that beautiful colors like the ones borne by the butterflies always lifted his spirits and were satisfying to him.
Feeling content as a flightless pterosaur could possibly be, he kept his position on the big sand bar for two hours, listening to bird and insect calls, sniffing every so often and scanning the jungle to make certain no predators were stalking him-although they'd find it difficult to sneak across the fair-sized expanse of sand in broad daylight to begin with-and snapping in irritation at some of the omnipresent huge mosquitoes that left the shade of the trees to demand their pint of blood. Whenever he felt it was safe enough to completely let down his guard, which was often, the Axiciacephalus would lie down on his belly or side like a seal, happily broiling away in the tropical sun as he digested his fish and shrimp meal, panting away any excess heat and raising his toothy elongated head periodically to check for any danger.
The only animals that showed up were harmless ones. As the butterflies drank the nutrient and mineral-rich fluids from the Ligocristus dung, they in turn attracted the occasional insectivore. With extreme caution, three of the bizarre two-tailed Flizards called Novusaurus warily scrambled out of the jungle one by one to feed around duckbill pies that were closest to its border.
Creatures of the jungle understory and canopy, they used their host of now tucked-back gliding membranes to cross any gaps between branches and quickly escape from predators. But on the sand, there were no high places to glide from, and they were totally vulnerable. Still, the weird green Flizards only ate nothing but butterflies, and such a waiting smorgasbord couldn't be passed up. As long as the Novusaurus trio stayed close to the trees, they'd likely be all right.
An even larger cousin, a large male Goliath Flizard, soon joined them. At a foot long, the tawny reptile was the largest of his family, with his chunky dragon-like head and two short brow horns giving him quite an imposing appearance. He too, had descended from the trees to hunt the butterflies. As a better, faster, climber and runner than Novusaurus, the Goliath Flizard felt confident enough to fully expose himself on the sand, where he chased and snapped up the lovely insects. As for his cousins, although the beige lizard didn't eat reptile, they still gave him a prudent berth.
Frogs croaked and peeped in the sultry air along the banks, and on the far bank, a flock of iridescent greenish-purple Nicobar pigeons, jungle nomads with collars of long, spiky neck feathers, flew down to drink from the shallow edge and quickly bathe before flying off again. The pigeons weren't the only ones craving water in the heat of the day. Scattering the nervous butterflies like a rainbow of confetti and sending the Flizards hastily running up the nearest trees, the now panting Axiciacephalus himself got back to his feet, walking hip deep into the cold creek and drinking.
Like a bird, he submerged his lower jaw and pouch and let them fill with water, then tilted it up to let it pour down his gullet. After doing this several times, the pterosaur felt good and refreshed. Submerging, he cooled off further by joyously rolling and gamboling in the crystal water for several minutes, making it roil as he exposed all sorts of random body parts above the surface, even his kicking dark legs.
That done, he rested in the water briefly, considering his next action. He really felt like going back to sunbathe some more, but now he felt slightly hungry again. Deciding that it wouldn't take too long to get a snack, he turned left and headed up the smaller stream.
This stream was slower-moving then the one he'd just left, and was more closely shaded by trees, but still had plenty good visibility. Finding a log, he poked under it with his beak and flushed out another golden yabby, which he ate. Wanting a bit more food, when he reached a shallow riffle he stood up and went back to stalking again.
Seeing the black, squat form of a saffron-bellied river toad sitting among some leaves on the bank nearby, he slowly turned and began to stalk it. One front in front of the other, he got closer to the plum-sized toad, stopping whenever he felt it noticed him. Finally, he was close enough, and caught the black toad after a quick chase. Briefly, he displayed the slick toad's trademark saffron yellow belly, reticulated with black, and then swallowed it down.
The next toad the flightless pterosaur encountered though was off limits as a meal. The Asian river toad is an absolute beast of a creature, weighing several pounds and able to gulp down rats. There was no way he could swallow this massive warty amphibian, and nor would he have tried anyway.
Besides its imposing size, the river toad was also able to produce toxic chemicals from skin glands, which could fatally poison any predator. Because of this, river toads were one of the few animals able to go where they pleased on this deadly isle. Even dim-witted Foteodon, the huge land crocodile whose motto was "If it moves, eat it now," knew better than to bite into a river toad.
Yawning, the Axiciacephalus allowed the river toad to calmly hop away while he continued walking upstream. As he kept at his still hunting, he came to an area of the stream with scattered water plants, and was fairly deep for wading. It was a good place to just stand still and grab small fish, and so he took up position. The forest stream was home to elegant rasboras, pale, greenish brown fish with silvery flanks and two blue-black blotches, one at the base of the tail, the other right in the center.
As he stood, a school of the five-inch fish returned, swirling around over the sand. Cautiously, he stepped forward, and grabbed one of the school's members with a dart of his crocodile head. Over the next ten minutes, slowly stalking, the pterosaur captured and ate three more rasboras until his hunger was sated.
After that, he walked back downstream, warily pausing to circle around and suspiciously eye a large reticulated python that had arrived to soak in the stream. At 12 feet long, this snake could constrict a goat with ease, and certainly an Axiciacephalus as well if it got too close. Wisely, this one didn't give the bathing python the chance.
On approaching the mouth, he submerged again, swimming out into the big stream and then standing up to walk back onto the sandbar. This time, he scattered not only the butterflies, but also a foraging flock of beautiful red jungle fowl, running and fluttering away like their chicken descendants.
He sat down again, enjoying the even hotter early afternoon sun, and doing what he could to drive away the Sapphire Imp and Black's giant mosquitoes that left the cool shade to drink his blood. The pterosaur stayed like this for maybe fifty minutes. Then, he heard the sound of mid-sized, but still big, dinosaurs moving through the jungle underbrush toward his sandbar. A whole herd of them.
Immediately, the Axiciacephalus got to his feet and inelegantly trotted back to the water, where he promptly leapt in and submerged, wheeling around with only his head and neck exposed above the surface. Then, unhurriedly cantering out of the green forest and out on the sand, came a two dozen strong herd of Sylvaceratops. Up to 16 feet long, the beige dinosaurs were common forest herbivores, beautifully ornamented over much of their bodies with black zebra stripes.
In the heat of the day, they'd come down only to drink of the cool water, and as gentle plant-eaters posed no threat to the Axiciacephalus. Identifying them, the male relaxed, but still kept his distance from the dinosaurs as he floated in the water. He had no problem with closely approaching or even swimming among dinosaurian herbivores that were in the water, but he found it very discomfiting to be among them on land.
Leaving the drinking Sylvaceratops herd, he swam downstream this time, having had enough sun for the day and feeling hungry again. Prodding under another big rock yielded a 9-inch Jack's red crayfish, which soon fell to his beak.
Besides fish and crustaceans, the diving pterosaur also liked to eat large insects when he could. Seeing a big emerald and gold Adrien's dragonfly perched on a log, he very carefully stalked it like a crocodile, keeping only his eyes and nose above the water. Then, with one decisive snap, he plucked the dragonfly from its perch.
Diving again, he saw a climbing perch in a clump of grass near the bank. Rushing forward, he chased down the 10-inch long grayish silver fish and swallowed it at the surface. Still going with the stream's flow more or less, the reptile soon picked out a school of five-inch spanner barbs, named because of an interesting perpendicular marking.
With the same otter-like agility he'd shown with the fusilier cichlids, he immediately went for the school, twisting and snapping after individual fish and skewering them on his needle teeth, every bit as comfortable upside down as right side up. Before the school finally regrouped and escaped, he captured four of the fish, and followed that up with a clouded long-clawed prawn that had foolishly bolted from its rock shelter in all the commotion.
It was quite hot and humid now, and most birds and animals were now either resting or having a drink. The Axicicephalus strongly felt like doing the same.
But then he was distracted. As he swam back downstream towards his fig tree, keeping near the right bank, he saw some white things flying around. He decided to inspect them more closely, and saw that they were flying termites, released from their self-imposed internment by the stimulus of the rains.
The genetic future of the colony, they seemed to grace the air like live confetti. Once they drifted back to earth, the alates would shuck their wings and desperately search for a mate. Having paired off, they'd return to the secure comfort of their dark underworld to start colonies of their own, and eventually raise new mounds to grace Skull Island's meadows and rainforests.
For most though, the flight would only lead to death in a predator's mouth, and the flightless pterosaur, seeing so many insects, was happy to do his part. Standing up, he began snapping the termites out of the air, and delicately plucking them off the vegetation.
Soon, he'd eaten all that he could reach. The mound these alates had come from was several hundred yards into the jungle, and there would be more and more as one got closer. So with guarded caution, he left the water's edge, nervously stopping to roughly scrape away much of the leaf litter as he walked deeper into the green forest, stopping to grab and eat the fat-rich termites as he went.
Getting closer, the Axiciacephalus could hear birds, a whole host of them. On reaching the monolithic castle of clay, he found himself absolutely surrounded by flying termites, and birds that had come to feed on them. There was a blue Skull Island hawk, walking right on the ground and picking up termites with her hooked beak while her mate grabbed them out of the air in his talons. Blue and yellow Dapper crows plucked them off branches and the forest floor as a Skull Island hornbill stood right on the mound itself, engulfing alates in his cavernous ivory beak.
A pair of Sordid Profanornis and their month-old chicks strutted around, crushing the insects in their huge bills, as a flock of red jungle fowl fed almost alongside them. Asian paradise flycatchers, red-bearded, blue-tailed, and blue-throated bee-eaters, and racket-tailed drongos swooped back and forth, grabbing winged termites in midair.
Hill mynas, crested jays, and yellow-green common ioras gleaned them in noisy flocks, with Feather Devils lunging at the fat-rich insects as they moved across the tree trunks. In the leaves themselves, the alates fell victim to mantids, wolf spiders, arboreal crabs, centipedes, katydids, orb-weaving spiders, and lots of ants.
Plenty of action and killing, that was for sure, but none of it was the kind to threaten the Axiciacephalus' welfare. With all diners being utterly focused on the same food supply, there was little fuss as he joined the feast, strutting around and doing his very best to eat all the energy-rich flying termites he could.
Being so unusually far from the water, with a very rough escape trail did make him nervous of course, but all these birds would make it near impossible for any predator to catch him unawares. The number of termites he ate was beyond counting, as he happily worked the area during the next twenty minutes.
But the fat-rich insects also attracted other predators as well, ones that ate bugs only infrequently, but were always killers of much bigger game. And Venatosaurus could kill the biggest of all.
Unbeknownst to the Axiciacephalus, two of the raptors, belonging to the smaller species impavidus, were silently creeping through the jungle undergrowth toward him. These two were sisters from the same pack, and while the rest of the group was taking a siesta, they'd decided to go on a short forage, checking out one of the nearby termite mounds to snack on the little flying packets of fat that they knew came out in such abundance at this time of year.
It was a smart move, and the Venatosaurs didn't stop there. They knew that they wouldn't be the only ones interested in the termites, and as they'd come closer, the sisters had switched to stalking mode, ready to take the opportunity to nab any large birds or monitor lizards that might be present.
The two raptors didn't see the Axiciacephalus until the termite mound was in clear view. Without words though, they just glanced at each other sideways, for the briefest moment, and each sister just knew that he was the prey. With amazing stealth for such big carnivores, they began to move apart.
The pterosaur had no idea he was being targeted. Still feeding, his only indication of danger was when the larger birds suddenly began calling in alarm. Then, they flew away in a whirring of wings, and the Profanornis family instantly gathered their chicks to them and ran away at speed, uttering croaking calls of agitation.
Without even thinking, the Axiciacephalus turned and began to run for the river as fast as his awkward legs would carry him. Seconds later, all the smaller birds exploded into flight as the pair of Venatosaurs rushed out, eager for the kill, with the dappled light shining off their sickle claws.
The flightless pterosaur had a good lead. But his path had been crudely made. The water's safety was several hundred yards away. And the Venatosaur sisters were faster than he was. If they caught up with him, he would have about as much chance of fighting them off as a rabbit with a coyote.
One of the raptors was coming at him from the right, and he desperately put on more speed, trying not to trip. The dinosaur would've had him within seconds, if she hadn't suddenly run right into another flock of red jungle fowl that had been eating termites. Even at the size of a domestic horse, she never passed up a chance to catch small prey when hungry, and went from running to leaping in a split second, grabbing two of the fleeing birds in her jaws.
The fortunate distraction gave the terrified Axiciacephalus a few more seconds of lead. But the other raptor was still chasing him. Nor did her sister take long to eat her poultry, and went back to the chase. Seeing the roiling stream now through the trees, he went even faster, almost feeling the Ventatosaurs on his tail.
Reaching the edge successfully, he dropped to his belly even before he was off dry land, and arrowed into the cold water like an escaping frog. This part of the stream was deep thankfully, and the churning, white, lightly silted water helped to mask his form even further.
As he used his flippers and toes to oh-so-delicately move across the bottom like a hippo, the pterosaur could now hear the sisters splashing into the stream themselves. They hadn't seen him actually go into the water, but they were pretty good at deducing things. They knew all about his tricks too, and split up, one standing on a large boulder, while her sister perched on a small gravel bar, scanning the water with their cat eyes.
The Axiciacephalus just kept still as possible, sneaking away from any place where he heard one of the raptors splash. Now, the Venatosaur sisters were just randomly, persistently searching, jumping from stepping stone to stepping stone, and wading in the cold water up to their hips.
The huntresses were hard pressed to detect any swirls or movements in the water that would betray the hidden pterosaur's presence, what with all the water moving so fast. But they didn't despair, for they had another advantage. Sooner or later, their prey would have to surface to breathe.
Staying as collected as he could, the Axiciacephalus had been underwater for almost eight minutes. His body was craving more oxygen now, but he also knew that if he rose to breathe, his stalkers would know right where he was, and be upon him in a second. Fortunately, he had a cunning solution to this unenviable dilemma.
Slowly, quietly, he crawled on his flippers and toes over to the right bank, undercut by the fast current. There, taking care to make his head look like nothing more than a stick, and concealed by the overhang's shade, he slowly exhaled, inhaled several times, then sunk down again. Then he picked his way back to the deeper part in the main current.
Seconds later, one of the raptor sisters happened to come to that spot, wading through the shallower water as she tirelessly looked for the hidden prey that she knew was very near. Standing on another boulder, her sister was scanning another part of the stream nearby, when she saw a submerged shape that looked very like the quarry they were after. Without any hesitation, she leapt, the other raptor already splashing through the water towards her, expecting a share of the kill.
Below the surface, the Axiciacephalus briefly saw the Venatosaur's lean body above him, dark against the light. She was going to splash down close, and he got ready to just swim for his life in a last-ditch attempt to escape, not caring if it gave him away. But he didn't have to, and heard a splash of water, then a jarring impact, then a screech of shock and surprise.
The Venatosaur had chosen wrongly. She'd unknowingly aimed for a sunken rock that had resembled a flightless pterosaur, and only received a painful bash to the legs for her efforts. This was very discouraging.
Now the sky was partly cloudy, making it even more difficult to see below the water. Both raptor sisters were cold, tired, and having no luck. Deciding that the game wasn't worth the prize, they left their boulder perches, splashed out of the stream, shook themselves, and went back to the termite mound. It wasn't worth using up so much time and energy when there were so many tasty winged termites for the taking.
The Axiciacephalus heard the raptors leaving the stream. He had to breathe again, and as before, slowly moved over to the shade of the bank to warily expose just the top of his head and breathe. Edgily, he sunk below again, and slunk back to the middle of the stream again, listening quietly. He knew that the Venatosaur pair had left the water. But were they now standing on the shore, waiting for him to give his position away by some overconfident gesture?
In actual fact, both his stalkers were now picking up, gathering, and eating handfuls of alates, but the pterosaur, not knowing that, picked his way downstream for several dozen yards before finally getting up enough courage to surface next to the cover of a colossal boulder. The Venatosaurus were gone, and he slowly relaxed.
After such a traumatic encounter, the Axiciacephalus wasted little time in leaving that stretch of water. He felt full, and wanted to get back to his fig tree, where his mate would likely be too. As he started to see his familiar section of stream bank up ahead, the dark clouds suddenly burst open, unleashing torrents of rain on the jungle.
A creature of the water, he didn't mind rain at all, and ignored it as he stepped out onto land, walking along his path to the strangler fig. His mate wasn't there, but it didn't worry him as he picked his way though the maze of columned roots and squatted on the wet leaves.
The fig tree provided fairly good protection from the rain, and not just for the pterosaur. Insects and spiders also came in to stay dry, the reptile occasionally having one for a snack. Now, he took the time to groom himself, running the tip of his sharp bill through his filament scales, working on every place from his tail to his flippers to his chest. His feet he used to take care of places his beak couldn't reach, the claws combing through the coat covering his wonderfully peculiar-looking head and neck
Soon, his mate showed up to join him, her dark form also weaving among the rain-slick roots. She'd also eaten well, and he happily greeted her with a cooing purr. She did the same, and then they clacked their beaks together for several seconds before she sat down.
Affectionate greetings over, the two Axiciacephalus sat down and just looked at the pouring rain, mumbling, quietly croaking, and beak-clapping as if they were telling each other about the day's adventures. And it might be that they were. During that time, there was some additional diversion when a mated pair of huge, red-headed Diablosaurus passed by, an odd, armor-encrusted dinosaur that looked very much like a reptilian white rhino-except it was at least five times heavier and more massive.
Although they looked like they had to be related to ceratopsians like Triceratops or for that matter the Sylvaceratops that roamed these jungles, they were actually evolved sauropods, which for some reason had filled the same ecological niche that rhinos filled in the Sumatran rainforest only a few hundred miles away. Grunting and snorting as they walked together through the forest, the two Diablosaurs seemed oblivious to the rain pelting the bosses, pebbles, truncated thick spikes, and thick scutes of bone mailing their backs.
To the Axiciacephalus respectfully watching from the inner sanctum of their fig tree, the strange red-headed dinosaurs seemed like giants beyond size, forces of nature as they squinted at the world with their weak, lizard-lidded eyes, dark monoliths against the sheets of rain as the big herbivores munched ferns and forest herbs.
The dinosaur pair, with the lazy, relaxed attitude that proclaimed they had nothing to fear from predators, took their time grazing their way across the pterosaur's field of vision. Even when the twin colossuses moved away far enough so that the pouring rain finally swallowed them, their grunting, heavy footfalls, and grinding of ferns could still be heard for a surprising length of time before that too, was lost to the storm.
When the rain stopped, the pair stood up, shaking off whatever rainwater had gotten to them inside the strangler fig's ramparts as the sun returned. His mate leading, the pterosaurs stepped out into the dripping forest, and drank from what pools of water remained before they soaked into the humus and soil. Their real objective though, was to once again, tend to their trails after this rain.
The leaves and twigs on the jungle trees were pretty sturdy and built for rains. Nonetheless, some always were dislodged by a jungle shower, and as far as the Axiciacephalus were concerned, it was best to remove these impediments on their escape trails sooner rather than later. As before, they split apart, each animal taking on a trail for themselves, and using feet or beak to remove any new objects.
There weren't many to dispose of this time, and the Axiciacephalus soon met his mate again back on their central trail. As diurnal creatures, they innately noted that the sun was steadily approaching the horizon. Still, there was a good amount of broad daylight left.
Now, the female turned and gently nudged her mate's throat pouch with the tip of her beak. Then she uttered a pensive, almost thoughtful groan. He knew what that meant. She was basically saying, in human terms, "I'm going to go hunting again for a bit. Want to join me?"
As they'd gone about most of the day alone, both of them had had a very successful day of fishing. Nevertheless, each animal did feel a little hungry again, having no problem at all with the idea of a small dinner before they retired for the night. The flightless pterosaur responded with a sweeping bow, accepting his partner's invitation.
So together, they walked down to the stream, keeping alert for any predators. A paradise tree snake crawled from a bush to a higher tree branch on seeing them, and a lime-green Aerosaur, a gliding lizard with great webbed feet and limb membranes smoothly swooped from the leafy branches of one great tree to another above their heads.
As if to remind the pair that tranquility and indeed, life itself were always just brief illusions, things never to be taken for granted on this horribly savage island, a lone straw-headed bulbul came shooting out above and in front of them. Automatically, the Axiciacephalus tensed, then turned to run right back to their nest. They knew from instinct and experience that if they saw another animal fleeing, that meant a predator and they'd sure better either run or leap into the nearest stream pretty quickly!
But this time, it was just a Howler that shot across their field of vision, uttering an occasional roaring, drawn-out boom of excitement as he stayed hard on the frantic bulbul's tail. Although they were no threat to the diving pterosaurs, Howlers were still nothing to sneeze at with a 4-5 foot wingspan and protruding incisor teeth. In appearance, the silvered-gray creatures looked very much like an obscene genetic cross between a flying fox and a howler monkey.
Their dangling, pinkish, rat-tails though, gave away their true ancestry. Many people mistakenly believe that bats are mice or rats with leathery wings. In fact, bats are more closely related to primitive primates like lemurs or tree shrews then to rodents. Bats show so many characteristics that are totally unique, that they are classified in their very own exclusive order. Even us humans, lords of all creation, can't lay claim to that status.
Howlers however, were descended from true rats, rodents that had taken to the air and branched out to claim most of the niches bats would normally occupy elsewhere on Skull Island. With their large eyes, they could efficiently navigate the jungle gloom to chase and catch lizards, insects, rodents, spiders, centipedes, and -and birds.
Cautiously, the two Axiciacephalus picked up their pace as they then heard the bulbul give a shriek three hundred yards into the canopy, the victorious Howler seizing it with his incisor teeth right in the air. Reaching the stream then, the female dove into the water first, and he followed seconds later.
Although the Axiciacephalus was very accomplished at fishing alone, and usually did feed that way, hunting with a mate could make it much easier to search out hiding fish, and especially to head off and corral schooling fishes. Keeping about eight feet apart, the two swam roughly side by side as they prodded with their beaks under rocks and gazed for fish through their third eyelids.
Jabbing under a large rock, he drove out a clouded long-clawed prawn and a Rufus stream shrimp. The pterosaur caught the prawn immediately, but his mate got the shrimp for herself. A few minutes later, his mate was investigating a buildup of silt in front of a log when a Black freshwater flounder suddenly shot out from its cover. Immediately, she pursued, but the Axiciacephalus was faster, and the flounder went to him.
It seemed like a case of take-as-take-can, but the advantage of fishing in pairs soon came into play when his mate saw a school of Naomi's pearl catfish ahead of them. Eight inches long, they were colored pearly blue above with a hint of pale amber on the head and back, their bellies colored a silvery blue with some pink. Four pairs of very long barbells sprayed outwards from around their mouths, with large blue eyes giving the catfish a somewhat shocked look.
Right now, they had reason to be, for although these lovely catfish had clearly evolved a color scheme that would hide them in plain sight, it didn't prevent them from being targeted by the flightless pterosaurs. Now, with his mate to assist him, the male's fishing became a lot easier. Lunging and turning, they worked together as a team, heading off the catfish school when it tried to escape, forcing them into a smaller area when it tried to spread out, and using their jabbing bills to drive out any Naomi's pearl catfish that tried to hide among water plants or rock crevices, often into the jaws of their mate.
Again and again, the result was that each Axiciacephalus rose to the surface with one of the pearly catfish in their teeth, manipulating it just the right way so as not to take a nasty jab in the mouth from a fin spine. The pair's efforts fed other mouths too. Spying the commotion, a white-bellied sea eagle flew down, plucking one of the catfish from the stream as it fled from its attackers. Twice more she did this, taking advantage of the perfect chance to nab prey that the diving pterosaurs had inadvertently set up before returning to her roost for the night. Another Aspiscimex, always ready for an ambush, rushed out from the shade of an undercut section of bank to dig the points of his forelegs into one of the fleeing fish, quickly exposing its insides to the water with a brutal slice from his mandibles.
The school was large, but the sun was now throwing long shadows over the stream. The two Axiciacephalus were having a successful time catching the pearly catfish, and were reluctant to quit. But predators often used the twilight hours as a prime time to stalk and catch prey, and it was best for their safety that they left the water now rather than later.
So, after eating one last catfish, the Axiciacephalus and his mate swam back upstream to their familiar "landing," spooking a blue whistling-thrush that'd been wading through the gravel shallows as it foraged for insect nymphs, its silvery feather tips catching the setting sun as it flew off in a whirr of dark blue feathers.
After warily sniffing the air, and not detecting any danger, the male stepped out with his mate, and they trotted back to their strangler fig home without incident. As the pair settled down and began to gently groom each other, a barn owl gave its long, quavering screech somewhere nearby, while a nightjar gave a series of sharp calls which sounded so much like a man chopping wood, both proclaiming the arrival of the night.
Like it always did in the tropics, the sun dipped beneath the horizon quickly, and after separating from his mate, the Axiciacephalus walked a few feet away, and used his feet to scrape out a rough hollow in the leaf litter. Then, as his beloved mate did the same, he yawned and sat down, and then stretched out in the hollow, sprawled on his belly.
Yawning again as the darkness came, he shifted once, twice, several times to get comfortable, then went to sleep. Both animals slept soundly, always with a part of their subconscious standing sentry for any danger that might infiltrate their shelter, for several hours.
Then, with a crash, the pterosaur and his mate were rudely awakened in the early morning by a very powerful thunderstorm, lightening stabbing through the night sky like daggers, and crashes of thunder that rivaled rockslides. Cowed by nature's power, both animals pressed up against each other for reassurance as the lightening cracked and rain bucketed down, lashing the leaves of the trees. There was nothing to do but just stay put and hope for the best as rain lashed them even among the roots.
Even more unnerving, the herds of big dinosaurs were spooked by this meteorological tantrum, with Ligocristus, Sylvaceratops, and Brontosaurus groups running around for suitable cover, or just in willy-nilly stampedes, mad with fear. Several times the pterosaur could see the legs of the huge herbivores pounding by through the latticework of roots, and the air rang with their groans, yells, brays, and bellows.
But eventually, as if satisfied with all the chaos it had caused, the storm died down and moved away through the dark sky as the stars slowly reappeared. Separating from his mate's side, the Axiciacephalus quickly forgot all about the storm's savagery, and went back to sleep in his now somewhat moist bed.
A few hours after that, the first rays of the rising sun once again began to turn the black, wet darkness of Skull Island's jungles the faintest hint of grey again. It penetrated into the strangler fig, and the female was the first to respond to it. As she yawned, then got to her feet, her noise woke the Axiciacephalus up, and he sat erect on his thighs. There was a large ground beetle crawling across the leaf litter off to his side. Without even having to get up, he plucked the green-black insect off the leaves with his beak, and had his first bit of breakfast as the voices of the birds rang in the dawn air.
He got up then, and followed his female out of their nest. He might not ever be able to ride the wind like his ancestors had done so well for so long, but he still had the water. And that was the next best thing.