Chased by Sea Monsters Reborn (To Be Rewritten)

Eocene

Eocene

Time : 35 Million years ago

Hazards : Basilosaurus, Sharks

Nigel walked along the Eocene beach and walked into the mangrove forest. "The Eocene is a momentous time for mammals." Nigel said to the cameraman. "When the dinosaurs went extinct 66 million years ago, the marine reptiles that we saw in the Cretaceous went with them. With these creatures gone, new ones emerged from the shadows to take their place, the mammals."

During the time of the dinosaurs, mammals were some of the smallest animals in the environment. But with no predatory dinosaurs to eat them, they've conquered the land. But some of them have taken to the sea. So what exactly is Nigel doing in a mangrove swamp?

"Mangrove swamps are lush, muddy, and there's water everywhere." Nigel explains. "As far from a desert as you could imagine. But believe it or not, this will one day become the Sahara. I'm on the site of what will become Cairo. If I stood here for 35 million years, the Egyptians would come and start building pyramids on my head."

While travelling through the Mangrove swamp, Nigel comes across a monstrous snake moving through the water. "If you're afraid of snakes, this creature will scare you out of your skin." Nigel explains to the cameraman as he watches the huge snake moving through the water. "This is Gigantophis, a giant snake longer than a car. There was a larger snake in South America about 60 million years ago but that creature went extinct before this animal."

"Gigantophis would have been quite similar to the green anacondas of today." Nigel explained. "They would constrict their prey before swallowing it whole. At this time, Gigantophis would have eaten earlier relatives of the elephants that we know of today. They're not venomous snakes though but they did appear around the same time as the first venomous snakes. So we really got to watch where we're going here."

But there's more than just snakes in these mangrove forests. Nigel would also run into one of the mammals that could live on both the land and in the water.

While Nigel's walking through the mangrove forest he comes across some tracks left behind by some currently unknown creature. "These look really promising, look." Nigel said to the cameraman. "The feet are splayed out just like a camel. To support the weight so they don't sink into the sand."

"But it's a really curious track that they're widely spaced." Nigel points out. "Most animals when they walk, it's one foot in front of the other. It's almost like this animal swings the weight of its body from side to side as it's walking along. This is really weird, it must be a big animal that waddles."

Nigel continues to follow the footprints where they lead him to a pile of dung. "Every tracker's dream, look." Nigel tells the cameraman. "A pile of fresh dung. So fresh that you can feel the heat emanating off of it."

Nigel gets a scent of the feces, instead of a nasty smell, it was a sweet smell. This led Nigel to the conclusion that this animal may be a fruit eater. Now he could hear a loud bellowing sound not too far away. Nigel was getting closer to finding out what kind of animal left those tracks and that pile of dung.

"Come over here." Nigel tells the cameraman. "But keep quiet."

There they saw a large gray mammal with two horns. It kind of resembled a primitive rhinoceros. "It's the only animal that waddles like that. It is a surreal creature." Nigel mentions before chuckling a little. "With a funny name, it's called an Arsinoitherium."