You are in the floodplains of China, Asia, 160 million years ago.

The heat of the Late Jurassic Sichuan basin was stifling, the air thick with the scent of cycads and damp earth. You were navigating a dense patch of ferns when the ground began to tremble—not violently, but with a heavy, rhythmic thud.

You froze, hiding behind a massive ginkgo tree. Emerging from the foliage was a Chungkingosaurus, a medium-sized stegosaur, looking much more compact and armored than its larger relatives. It was perhaps four or five meters long, its skin a mottled, earthy green. Its back was adorned with two rows of small, upright plates, leading to a formidable spike-tipped tail (or "thagomizer").

The creature wasn’t paying attention to you; it was focused on feeding, its narrow snout grazing on low-lying shrubs.