Denizens of the Hunsford Tar Pits

By Linda Beutler

The dominant (although the word is hardly an apt descriptor) male dinosaur living in the environs of the Hunsford Tar Pits is the Tricollinstops pachypygoura forma tardus (the thick-rumped-and-tailed Tricollinstop, slow moving form). It was originally thought to be sterile, occurring in nature only rarely through a complex hybridization of cousins in the family Bennetiadae—in which every deviant recessive gene is expressed in one grotesque creature—but careful observation of the fossil record deemed the Tricollinstop too slow-moving (and slow-witted) to catch a mate, rather than being sterile. The oily—one might almost say greasy—nature of the creature’s horned hide made it particularly disgusting, as well as its constant meaningless vocalizing.

This small series of pits lies just outside the known boundaries of the Rosings region (described previously), and the influence of the Archeoechinodon deBourghii var. rigida is felt in no small measure. It is believed the thick-rumped Tricollinstop regurgitated food for the old spiny dinosaur (submissive behavior learned from the Haplojenkinsonopteryx minimus), as well as preening and grooming it in ways quite deplorable for God-fearing modern zoologists to contemplate, but pre-dating the evolution of small mammals such as the naked mole rat, Heterocephalus glaber. The social interactions of the Rosings dinosaurs and the Hunsford Tar Pit dinosaurs mimic naked mole rats in that the subservient Tricollinstop covers himself in the old spiny dinosaur’s urine and feces to keep from being eaten by the colony queen; thus she is fooled into thinking the Tricollinstop is some extension of herself.

This behavior continued until, unlikely as it may seem, the thick-rumped Tricollinstop was eventually singled out as a mate by a Charlottedon domesticus subspecies desperatadephis, known as the desperate-wombed Charlottedon. All Charlottedons, like some females in the family Bennetiadae, produce only female offspring, and so are shunned by the more virile and masculine of the various dinosaur families and genera. We can only imagine the surprise of the Tricollinstop to be stalked and eventually cornered by the desperate-wombed Charlottedon, for Charolottedons in general emit no pheromones and are without distinctive secondary sexual characteristics. It would appear the thick-rumped Tricollinstop, once initiated to the voracious sexual proclivities of the Charlottedon, avoided certain death from over-exercise by promising a more comfortable nest amidst the tar pits for the always practical Charlottedon, and the likelihood of an even greater domicile after their future migration to the Longbourn environs. But for that eventuality to occur, the Tricollinstop had to avoid the amorous attentions of his mate and the challenges of being constantly under the eye of the old spiny dinosaur.

Previous Jurassic Austen dinos:

KC Kahler: Hunkasaurs pemberlii
KC Kahler: Maternosaurus vulgaris
Beau North: Avaricium hypochondrius
Jessica Evans: Siblioraptor wantonus
KC Kahler: Diplosororia dramatis
KC Kahler: Nauticolophus fidelum
Linda Beutler: Dinosaurs of the Rosings biome