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Dinosaurs
and Disease
 "Hi,
there! I'm just relaxing here on the shore of this beautiful sea.
Its shallow waters are filled with life: fish, ammonites, plankton,
mosasaurs, pesiosaurs, and ichthyosaurs. Huge pteranodons glide
lazily overhead. I can see, a broad plain covered by trees, flowers,
and grass extending to the distant, volcano-studded mountains visible
in the west. Herds of Triceratops graze among the plants, and groups
of duckbill Trachodons wade in the lazy rivers flowing across the
plain. In about 65 million years, this land will be a dry, windy
plain you humans will call eastern Montana. But right now it's a
dino paradise!"
Image adapted from © 1999 -www.arttoday.com
"Sigh!
Seems like this is the last dinosaur paradise left on Earth. My
buddies and I were lucky to find it. We used to live on a wet, coastal
plain over in a land you call Asia, but it dried out and we had
to leave. We wandered for years, but all the other dino hangouts
we found were drying up too. We found small groups of dinosaurs
here and there, but never very many. We even crossed a dried-up
ocean bottom. Ugh! Bones and shells of dead sea creatures were everywhere.
Then we found this place and moved right in!"
"But things
are slowly drying up around here, too, and food is getting scarce.
My buddies and I are much better at finding food than the local
dinosaurs. That's great for us! But not so good for the locals.
They always seem to be hungry - and sick. There are not as many
of them as there used to be. "
"Recently,
a lot of my buddies have been getting sick, too. Some new bug seems
to be going around! I hope I don't get it! I can't worry about it
too much or I will turn into a hypochondriacasaurus!"
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