Chapter 7: Hell Creek Group, all creatures compete for freedom in the frosty sky!

"Roar--!!"

Chu Xu was just feasting on the belly of the Wo's rhinoceros when he heard the roar of the Dragon Mother not far away.

The ground beneath her feet began to shake violently. The Dragon Queen, who had smelled the blood from a long distance away, took big steps and rushed home. She saw Longyue and Liuxing, who were scared away by the Wo's rat-toothed beast.

"Ouch~~"

When the frightened Longyue and Liuxing saw the Dragon Mother, they seemed to have found their backbone. They were so anxious that they danced and screamed.

Both children were safe and sound... Long Ma felt a little relieved, but she did not see the figure of her eldest child, so she did not care about Longyue and Liuxing, and hurried to the scene.

The smell of blood at the scene was even more pungent, but what caught the Mother of Dragons' eyes was a strange corpse of a large black rat. As for her own boss, he was leisurely enjoying the delicacy, his mouth full of dripping blood.

Seeing the Mother of Dragons coming back, Chu Xu raised his head, grinned, and revealed a bloody smile.

Mother Long hurried to Chu Xu's side, lowered her head, and checked that he was not injured. Only then did she feel completely relieved.

Following behind, Longyue and Liuxing were also hiding in fear behind the big feet of the Dragon Mother, peeking their heads out. When they found that the ferocious big black rat had stopped moving, they came forward curiously.

"Roar~~"

Chu Xu, who had almost finished eating, gave up the body of the Wo's rhinoceros. Longyue and Liuxing, who were already starving, forgot their fear and rushed forward to grab the food, wagging their tails with joy.

After a while, the Wo's rat-toothed beast was eaten clean by Chu Xu and Longyue Liuxing, leaving only dried blood and broken bones on the ground.

And today, the Mother of Dragons also brought back an unusual prey, a baby Triceratops!

Triceratops, a large herbivorous dinosaur of the genus Triceratops in the family Ceratopsida, is a dinosaur star on par with Tyrannosaurus Rex. It is sturdy and bulky.

The most iconic features are the three huge horns growing on its head and the neck shield extending backwards. Its entire body is covered with thick skin like armor, making it look majestic.

Although this is just a baby Triceratops, it is larger than Chu Xu. Its length from head to tail is more than 2 meters, and its weight is at least 1 ton.

Faced with such a rare Triceratops cub, Chu Xu did not want to waste it, so he and Longyue and Liuxing started to tear it apart and eat it one bite at a time, until their bellies were full and they could not eat any more, and then they stopped.

After eating and drinking, night had fallen. Chu Xu's family of four lay cozily inside and outside the dragon egg nest, snuggling up to each other for warmth and fell asleep.

……

Early the next morning.

The sky was just getting light, and the morning mist in the forest was like a layer of gauze, floating quietly in the dawn light.

Chu Xu, Longyue and Liuxing, who were sleeping soundly in the dragon egg nest, were awakened by the roar of the Dragon Mother.

I saw that the Mother of Dragons had stood up and was roaring at them with special meaning, asking them to follow her and leave.

Female Tyrannosaurus Rex are often very sensitive and vigilant when raising their children. Because of the attack by the Voronodon last night, the mother was worried that when she was out hunting, other uninvited guests would break in and attack her children, so she decided to move as soon as possible.

Chu Xu had lived here for more than a month and was just beginning to get used to the place, but suddenly he had to leave. He felt a little reluctant.

But no matter how reluctant he was, safety was the most important issue. Chu Xu was lucky yesterday, as he encountered a small predator that was not very threatening. If he had encountered other medium or large predators, it would be hard to say whether he could see the sun this morning.

The territory of the Mother of Dragons is also very extensive, and she had prepared several secret and safe residences before this.

So the Mother of Dragons led the way in front, and Chu Xu, Long Yue and Liu Xing followed closely behind her big feet, and thus they embarked on the journey of moving.

For every step that the Mother of Dragons took, their small feet had to take a dozen quick steps just to barely keep up and not fall behind.

Speaking of which, this was Chu Xu's first time leaving home to experience the real and vivid Late Cretaceous dinosaur kingdom!
In the distance at the end of the field of vision is a huge, undulating mountain range, as thick as a dragon's spine.

This is the Rocky Mountains located in the western part of North America. They have been rising continuously since the Laramide orogeny that began in the Late Cretaceous. After that, they had to go through tens of millions of years of evolution in the Tertiary and Quaternary periods before they formed the appearance that Chu Xu and his descendants are familiar with.

Chu Xu followed the Dragon Mother along the winding river, passing through the larch forest with the autumn breeze blowing gently. Flocks of Cretaceous-winged birds soared in the clear blue sky, and from time to time one or two salamanders jumped out from the bushes on the ground and disappeared without a trace in the blink of an eye.

What appeared most frequently in Chu Xu's eyes were living dinosaurs!

Among the low and dense cycads and horsetails, large groups of Triceratops and Toxoceratops formed an airtight iron barrel, alert to potential threats around them while quickly burying their heads in eating.

They are huge in size, just like elephants in later generations. They spend most of the day foraging for food to obtain enough energy to maintain their high energy-consuming metabolic rate.

Under the tall and lush pines, cypresses and ginkgo trees, there are Edmontosaurs standing on their hind legs, picking young leaves from branches to eat, which are also a large-scale tribe.

The young cubs were playing and frolicking around their parents, unknowingly attracting a group of hungry Troodonts, which were hovering around the Edmontosaur herd, watching them eagerly.

“Ugh!!”

At this moment, the Edmontosaurus leader turned his head to look at the location of the Troodon group. The nasal sac on his nose suddenly swelled up, making a loud noise like thunder.

The rest of the Edmontosaurs also puffed up their nasal sacs and made deafening noises towards the group of Troodon, scaring them so much that they dared not to do anything else and quickly turned around and ran away.

There are also small groups of Ankylosaurs and Pachycephalosaurs drinking water by the river. With their special skills, they are often the targets that ordinary predators dare not provoke;

The solitary Anzusaurus, Struthiomimus, and Hook-handed Dragon wandered through the mountains and forests, eating plants, insects, lizards, and small mammals.
Dromaeosaur hunters such as Dakotaraptor and Styxraptor hid in the dark, waiting patiently for their prey to take the bait.

There is also a huge shadow cast from time to time in the sky, which is the size of a small airplane.

In this forest shrouded by autumn frost, the animals of the entire Hell Creek Formation of the Maastrichtian Period of the Late Cretaceous are all trying their best to survive with their own unique abilities. In front of Chu Xu's eyes, they weave into a beautiful picture of all kinds of creatures competing for freedom in the frosty sky.

The Cretaceous Period is divided into the Late and Early Periods, with a total of 12 stages. The Maastrichtian Period is the last stage of the Late Cretaceous Period.

A group is a rock stratigraphic unit. The so-called Hell Creek Formation refers to the stratigraphic location where dinosaur fossils were found.

The Hell Creek Formation is one of the most famous strata of the Maastrichtian Period of the Late Cretaceous, and is mainly composed of sandstone, clay, and mudstone.
At that time, this was a tributary of the Missouri River, forming a huge ecosystem consisting of subtropical wetland forests and inland coastal floodplains. It is famous for the discovery of famous dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus Rex, Triceratops, and Ankylosaurus.

This is exactly the paleontological history that Chu Xu devoted himself to studying in his previous life. When the history of the past became reality and appeared vividly before his eyes, the shock in his heart was beyond words.

……

(End of this chapter)