You are in the coastal plains of Eastern North America, 77 million years ago.

The air in the Alabama coastal plain was thick, humid, and smelled of salt and decaying vegetation. You were crouching behind the massive, buttressed roots of a cypress-like tree, holding your breath, after hearing a soft thumping noise vibrating through the mud, accompanied by the snapping of branches.

Through the dense, tangled ferns, a tyrannosaur emerges, an Appalachiosaurus. It wasn't the giant T. rex from the west; it was sleeker, maybe 20 feet long, but no less terrifying. The sunlight caught the faint, low crests running down its snout—a ridge of dark, brown bone that distinguished it from its cousins. Its scales were a dappled mix of muddy green and charcoal, perfect camouflage for the shadowed undergrowth.

The tyrannosaur stopped, turning its slender skull, and its yellow eyes scan its surroundings, much to your dread. It is stalking, and you are in its hunting grounds…