Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
in his time (a 3-footer had once crawled into his bed on an island on Aus-
tralia's Great Barrier Reef), and he had even seen a Komodo dragon, the
largest lizard of his world and found only on a remote island in Indonesia.
But even the Komodo dragon, which could reach a length of 8 feet or more,
was puny compared to the more massively built and far longer mosasaurs,
which could reach a length of 30 feet. Yet the mosasaurs were close relatives—
direct ancestors, really—of those future lizards, and although of dinosaurian
dimensions in some cases, they were simply lizards grown giant. But theit
feet had evolved into paddles, and their tails had broadened into a large, flat-
tened shape more resembling that of a crocodiles than the long whip-like
tails of its terrestrial relatives. He watched it swim, admiring its speed and
agility; in its element, the mosasaur reminded him of the large seagoing croc-
odiles he had seen in Micronesia, creatures far more dangerous to humans
than any shark ever evolved.
Although he thought he could fend off this particular mosasaur if need
be, he didn't want to take the chance. But the marine lizard seemed uncon-
cerned with him, if it had seen him at all; it dashed again into the crowd of
far slower ammonites, taking the body chamber of one of the larger am-
monite's shells in its jaws. With a rending crack the shell broke, and the
slashing jaws quickly tore into the now-exposed body portions of the am-
monite. He watched the victim disappear in an explosion of blue blood and
then slide down the gullet of the lizard as it turned toward another fleeing
ammonite.
He swam quickly forward and down and snagged the largest piece of
falling shell. He looked for tooth marks or any evidence that would alert
some future paleontologist to the true nature of the predatory attack he had
just witnessed. Like the first bit of shell he had caught earlier in his dive, this
fragment bore no holes.
The ammonites retreated into the distance, still menaced by the small
mosasaur, and once again he was alone in the uppermost region of the Cre-
taceous ocean. A brisk wind had risen during his dive, and he was buffeted
by the wave action only 10 feet above his head. He looked again at his watch
and saw that he was now free to surface. He watched small fish skim just be-
