You are in the forests of South America, 225 million years ago.

The air in this part of Gondwana was thick and humid, tasting of ozone and wet pine. Towering araucaria conifers cast long, dramatic shadows across a floodplain dominated by soft, mud-rich earth. Moving carefully through the dense undergrowth, you halted as a rustling sound disrupted the humid silence.

Emerging from behind a giant fern, a small herd of Unaysaurus appeared, roughly three to four individuals. They were not the titans their descendants would become; rather, they were sleek, nimble sauropodomorphs, probably no more than 2.5 meters in length. They were surprisingly graceful creatures, moving comfortably on their hind legs while using their clawed, smaller front limbs to pull down foliage. One of them, likely a young adult with a surprisingly slender neck, stopped to forage just ten meters away. You could hear the sharp snip of its teeth clipping ferns.

It felt like watching the quiet dawn of the giants. One Unaysaurus suddenly halted its feeding… to peer directly at your hiding spot with intelligent, dark eyes…