Primary Dinosaur Species of the Rosings Biome By Linda Beutler

(Extract from Saurdonteryx, Journal of Very Amateur Paleontologists)

The verdant forests and steamy caves of the Rosings Biome were dominated by the “queen bee” of this eusocial animal community, Archeoechinodon deBourghii var. rigida (common name, old spiny dinosaur of firm opinions and intrusive manners). This was a dinosaur who would not be gainsaid, and no details of the of any lesser dinosaurs and evolving mammals were too small to escape her hawk-like eyes and loudly-voiced opinions on the most minute of topics. This was a fearsome creature, and many submissive species danced attendance upon her, engaging in grooming, preening, and regurgitating activities (most notably the thick-rumped Tricollinstops, soon to be described in Denizens of the Hunsford Tar Pits, Beutler, 2015). That the Rosings community survived its queen is a testament to the ingenuity of the lesser creatures and the queen’s attraction to shiny objects with which to adorn her thick hide and ostentatious lair. Distracting her was blessedly easy.

The mate of the old spiny dinosaur must have either been equally fearsome—one assumes heavily clad with protective scales and likely deaf—or a small darting creature able to, at least initially, take her unawares, and again, likely deaf. The two built an elaborately ornate nest, and the queen Archeoechinodon rarely migrated from it unless sorely vexed. Once the queen was impregnated, the mate was eaten.

The only offspring of the old spiny dinosaur was the Pseudohypochondricasaurus sempernothos subspecies annei, or more commonly, Anne’s falsely-ill-and-always-wrong dinosaur.  This was a pale, sickly creature, often cross and as impatient with its inferiors as the colony queen.  Although the colony queen did everything possible to attract the highest quality mate for her offspring, the disinterested Anne’s-falsely-sick-and-always-wrong dinosaur would, as advertised, feign some temporary but repugnant malady (emitting copious projectile bodily effluvia), which sent prospective males screaming for more fertile dinosaurs with light and pleasing figures and given to rolling in plants pre-dating Lavendula angustifolia (lavender) known in its earliest evolutionary stages to be a great aphrodisiac.

The tiniest dinosaur in the Rosings Biome was the Haplojenkinsonopteryx minimus, (Jenkinson’s single dinosaur). The only known specimen was always found in association with the Pseudohypochondriacasaurus. It was a flightless yet flighty creature given to eating the food of the Anne’s-falsely-sick-and-always-wrong dinosaur and spitting it back half digested into the larger creature’s mouth. No fossil record exists for any male form of Jenkinson’s single dinosaur, likely because the female would, every few years, molt its skin to reveal brighter colors before eating a male and turning black again within days of metabolizing its feast.