While it's fun to focus on fossils of specific animals or plants, it's easy to forget that all of these species come together to tell the story of a much larger prehistoric community. So, what was central Texas like in "dinosaur times"?

During the early Cretaceous, specifically the Aptian age, most of Texas was covered by the Western Interior Seaway, and what we now know as the city of Glen Rose was a shallow marine shelf on the edge of that sea. Fossils show that these waters were full of fish, rays, and sharks. Invertebrates like crabs and urchins crawled among clams, corals, and sponges on the sandy seabed. Squidlike ammonites drifted in the currents with the help of their spiral shells, which had chambers filled with air and fluid that allowed them to float. Aquatic reptiles called mosasaurs ruled the water, preying on pretty much anything they could get in their mouths—fish, sea turtles, unlucky birds, and even other mosasaurs.

While marine fossils offer a glimpse under the waves, tiny pollen microfossils, petrified wood, charcoal, and leaf prints set the stage on land. Beyond the shoreline of the Western Interior Seaway lay gently sloping valleys and semiarid floodplains. Here, the landscape was dominated by towering conifer forests adapted to survive on limited rainfall. These woods were made up of trees like Frenelopsis ramosissima—an evergreen with gumball-sized cones and scaley, twiglike leaves—which could grow to nearly seventy feet tall. Though we now know Texas for its rolling prairies, grass did not exist during the Cretaceous. Instead, ferns, cycads, and extinct fronds with rough trunks called bennettitaleans mixed in the understory.

This ecosystem supported a diverse array of dinosaurs, from pint-sized Convolosaurus hatchlings to titans like Acrocanthosaurus and Sauroposeidon. The raptor Deinonychus stalked ornithopods like Tenontosaurus, probably leaving tanks like the armored nodosaur Pawpawsaurus to browse in peace. The area also hosted medium-sized pterosaurs like the azhdarchid Radiodactylus.

Though the Glen Rose, Paluxy, and Woodbine formations that overlap in central Texas are well-known for their dinosaur fossils, many other kinds of animals also called the coast of the Western Interior Seaway home. Frogs, salamanders, and turtles lived along rivers with creatures like the lungfish Ceratodus. Crocodiles like Pachycheilosuchus also patrolled the waterways.

Meanwhile, on dry land, the small crocodile relative Tarsomordeo winkleri had completely adapted to life on land by trading stubby, sprawled-out limbs for long legs positioned under its body. About the size of a cat, they probably hunted anything that scurried through the brush, including lizards, dinosaur nestlings, and ratlike mammals like the little, predatory eutriconodont Astroconodon denisoni.

---------

Hi friends,

There is some art for this but it's not quite where it needs to be. I'll post it sometime this week, plus a link to the Q&A. If you haven't submitted a question but still want to, you can message me or drop a comment.

I've dropped the CatLF PLAYLIST in my feed! You can find it under the Conversations tab. It's full of songs that I listen to while I write this story, including all the music Cecelia has referenced so far, like Black Ghost Blues and Soulshine.

I know 1K reads is a pretty regular number around here, but for me, it's huge. This is the first time I've ever shared my work online. I always have fun writing stories, but your comments, questions, and fanart have made me incredibly excited to work on this story. Thank you for the encouragement. Thank you for sticking with me. You make me want to do my best!

See you next week with an all-new chapter.

--KP