Siberia, 200 million years hence
It was rare for Siberogekko to descend to the ground for long periods of time. These lizards were highly adapted for a scansorial lifestyle. Both hands and feet bore opposable digits with long claws, well-fit for grasping onto branches. Neosaurs evolved from terrestrial lizards – the “eyelid geckos”, Eublepharidae. These ancestral geckos lacked the distinctive adhesive lamellae of other gecko lineages, so the feet of siberogekkonids – the most arboreal lineage of neosaurs at this time – more closely resembled those of arboreal lizards and mammals.
But descend this individual did, for she had an idea.
The gecko scuttled down the side of a redwood tree, beside which a grovemaster slept. Grovemasters could reach over 30 feet in length and weigh over a ton; this individual was almost at full size. Despite their large size, they still bore a short coat of fur that covered the entire body in juveniles, retreating to only the dorsal third of the body in adults. And this furry covering could potentially bear parasites. Siberogekko often employed this on the flanks of the colossal Avititan, as those colossal birds were a magnet for parasitic insects and bloodsucking nails. Perhaps this strategy could also be fruitful here.
The Siberogekko leapt from the side of the trunk, landing in the leaf litter. Her gait was awkward on the ground; being the earliest diverging lineage of neosaurs, siberogekkonids still had splayed hindlimbs, lacking the upright posture that would carry other lineages of neosaurs hundreds of millions of years into the future. But even so, she managed to approach the grovemaster, treading softly enough to not wake it. Approaching the tail, she leapt onto the side of the grovemaster’s flank and climbed up towards its dorsal half.
She could find nothing except for a bloodsucking nail. This one was a decently-sized individual, with about a seven-inch wingspan. It sat hooked on the grovemaster’s upper flank, its toothy proboscis drilled into the beast’s side. As it drank the grovemaster’s blood, it excreted the digested remnants of the blood onto the side.
A meal’s a meal. The Siberogekko bit the nail by its torso and tore it off the side of the grovemaster. Blood spurted out of the now-open wound, but the nail’s proboscis was small enough that most of the time the host did not notice. The flapping of the nail’s wings took a while to cease as the Siberogekko grabbed it in its forelimbs and continued to inflict bites.
Just as the Siberogekko was about to start eating its catch, the grovemaster stirred into consciousness. It raised its head from the ground and opened its mouth in a yawn, baring all 40 of its rust-colored teeth. The Siberogekko instinctively froze as the grovemaster raised itself from the leaf litter, pushing itself off the ground with its forelimbs. Adopting a reared bipedal posture, the 25-foot mammal cocked its head as if it had heard something, before letting out a deep, yawn-like roar. A similar but more distant-sounding roar responded. The grovemaster headed forward into the forest, seemingly tracking the source of the opposing roar. The Siberogekko remained frozen on its back.
Soon the grovemaster found itself face-to-face with another of its kind. Usually, grovemasters were solitary, mostly convening during mob-hunts of Avititan. This could lead to a fight. Dead nail in its mouth, the Siberogekko bailed, leaping off its ride and landing on the trunk of a nearby redwood, which it then ascended.
But neither emitted the guttural aggressive vocalizations characteristic of the species. Each grovemaster sniffed the other, and then the two nuzzled their snouts together. These were a mating pair. Pairs were transient and lasted only the 15-month duration of pregnancy – a gestational period this fast for an animal this large required more food than a single individual could bring down on their own. And indeed, one grovemaster’s abdomen was larger than the other’s – about a month from birth. After she gave birth, the parents would separate, and the mother would go on to raise on her own. But for now, the two stayed connected.
Their further adventures were of little concern to the Siberogekko, who watched the pair from above. Back in the relative safety of the trees, she had a meal to eat.