Chapter 61: Cretaceous Beast, Ancient Saniwa Lizard! (Seeking follow-up recommendation votes)
At dusk that day, it started to drizzle in Chu Xu's territory.

The drizzle was accompanied by a light breeze, and the sound of the rain falling was like soft piano music, floating melodiously in the air.

On a bare tree whose leaves had been eaten by herbivorous dinosaurs, a petite Cretaceous beast hid at the entrance of the tree hole, poking its little head out and secretly peeking outside with a timid look.

Cretaceous is a small mammal of the Cretaceous class of the Prototheria, only about 20 cm long and looks like a tree shrew.

In the Late Cretaceous period when dinosaurs had not yet become extinct, Cretaceous beasts might have been just a tiny creature at the bottom of the food chain, insignificant.

However, in the Cenozoic Era after the mass extinction of dinosaurs, Cretaceous beasts seized the opportunity to step onto the big stage of biological evolution and gradually evolved into the famous microdonts of the Cenozoic Era.

The microdonts are the common ancestors of later carnivores, and they differentiated into two major groups: the feliformes and the caniformes, including common beasts such as the cat family, canid family, bear family, and mustelid family.

The little chalk beast was lying at the entrance of the tree hole. Its mother had gone out hunting early this morning and had not returned yet.

It still remembers its mother’s warning that the outside world is full of dangers and it must not go out alone under any circumstances.

But the little Cretaceous Beast, whose stomach was growling with hunger, could not bear it any longer, so he had to take the risk of leaving the tree hole and going outside to check the situation.

"Zhizhi~~"

The little Cretaceous beast looked left and right with its bean-sized eyes, but didn't see anything unusual. It only heard the sound of raindrops falling on the grass.

After hesitating for a long time, the little Cretaceous beast finally crawled out of the tree hole and crawled down along the tall and thick trunk.

It wanted to find its mother, but the grassland in front of it was so vast that it didn't know where to find its mother.

Suddenly, in the grassland that had also been eaten bare by herbivorous dinosaurs, the little Cretaceous beast discovered a black beetle, which was the delicious food that its mother often brought back for it.

Hunger drove the little Cretaceous beast closer and closer to the beetle, wanting to catch it and eat it.

But the little Cretaceous beast had never tried to hunt before and did not know how to hide its body. The unintentional movement startled the beetle, which immediately raised its wing elytra, spread its wings and flew away.

"squeak!!"

The little Cretaceous beast became anxious and sped up to chase the beetle, but how could it catch up with the flying beetle? After a while, the beetle disappeared.

The little Cretaceous beast searched around for a long time but couldn't find the beetle. It failed in its first hunt and became even hungrier due to the physical exhaustion.

The dejected little Cretaceous beast is ready to go home. It's better to wait for its mother to come back at home.

But at this moment, a hissing sound of sticking out tongue was heard from not far away, and a huge lizard revealed its figure.

This is an ancient Saniwa lizard, a reptile of the family Varanidae in the order Squamata. It is over 3 meters long and can weigh up to 200 kilograms, comparable in size to the largest lizard in later generations - the Komodo dragon.

Like other monitor lizards, the ancient Saniwa lizard has a flat and wide head, a pair of eyes on both sides, and a large mouth full of curved and sharp teeth with serrated structures on the edges to facilitate cutting skin and muscles.

Its iconic feature is the bone-forming scales within the skin, which have extremely strong defensive capabilities, as if it were wearing an invisible chain mail; there is also a hinge-like joint at the connection between the upper and lower jaws, which allows the lower jaw joint to detach and stretch outward during eating, maximizing the opening of the mouth to assist swallowing.

The diet of the ancient Saniwa lizard included birds, small mammals, and small dinosaurs.
Its saliva contains terrible bacteria and venom, just like the Komodo dragon, which can cause the blood vessels of the bitten person to dilate and the blood to be unable to coagulate, leading to muscle paralysis and eventually death from shock and excessive blood loss.

“Ssss!!”

The ancient Saniwa lizard has a very keen sense of smell. Its forked tongue constantly sticks out like a radar antenna, distinguishing scents on the breeze.

It quickly caught the scent of its prey!
The ancient Saniwa lizard suddenly became excited, and quickly moved its sturdy limbs towards the location of the small chalk beast. "Squeak!"

Soon, the little Cretaceous beast noticed the movement and looked in the direction of the sound. He thought it was his mother coming back, but what appeared was a hideous and ugly big lizard!
“Ssss!!”

When the ancient Saniwa lizard saw the small Cretaceous beast, its eyes suddenly lit up, because this was a rare delicacy.

Don't be fooled by its bloated body, the ancient Saniwa lizard is actually not slow at all. After discovering its prey, it immediately rushes towards the small Cretaceous beast at a short-range burst speed of 20km/h!
"Squeak!"

The little Cretaceous beast was frightened and turned around and ran away, screaming as it ran, trying to call for its mother.

But the cry of the little Cretaceous beast did not call for its mother, but instead called for a figure that was far larger and more terrifying than the ancient Saniva lizard. To the little Cretaceous beast, it was simply an insurmountable mountain!
Dinosaur!

That was the land overlord that was even more terrifying than the giant lizard! The fear of it deep in the genes of the little Cretaceous Beast was aroused!

"I'm lucky. I met a little lizard just after I went out."

Chu Xu took two steps at a time and leaped out, stepping accurately on the head of the Gusaniwa lizard, turning its skull into a flat meat patty that was then paste-like on the grass along with the exploding blood and brain juice.

[Ding! You hunted a Gusaniva Lizard, evolution points +20. ]

20 evolution points is still a bit shabby, but considering that the opponent was killed by one kick, it is acceptable.

Like venomous snakes, the venom glands of the ancient Saniwa lizard are located in the head, so if you remove the head before eating it, you don’t need to worry about poisoning.

Chu Xu picked up the headless body of the ancient Saniwa lizard and threw it into his big mouth and started eating. The meat was not dry or greasy, and was very similar to chicken. It tasted pretty good.

He has basically tasted the flavors of large land lizards. When he has the chance, he must try the meat of the large marine lizard - Mosasaur.

It was not until he had finished eating the entire ancient Saniwa lizard that Chu Xu discovered that there was a small mammal next to his feet, its body stiff, its limbs weak, and it was so scared that it dared not move.

It was a chalk beast, the first time he had seen one.

Chu Xu basically ignored these little guys that were not even as big as his toes. Hunting them was not worth the effort. The evolutionary points were so few that they could be ignored, and there was not much meat on them, not even enough to fill the gaps between his teeth.

However, Chu Xu, who was a paleontologist in his previous life, was somewhat interested in this Cretaceous beast that would shine in the future. He lowered his big head and carefully looked at its entire body.

It is another ugly and cute loose rat, but one can vaguely make out some of the shadow of the future carnivorous mammal.

"squeak!"

Faced with such a ferocious head that was several times larger than itself, the little Cretaceous beast was so scared that it jumped up, then kicked its legs and fainted.

Chu Xu smiled bitterly.

I thought that if I left this frightened little guy here, he might be targeted by other predators.

So Chu Xu casually placed it on his palm and walked away with it.

……

(End of this chapter)