You are in the forests of North America, 196 million years ago.

The air in the Early Jurassic forest was thick, humid, and smelled of wet ferns. You stood frozen, your flashlight beam cutting through the dense, midnight foliage, revealing three sets of tiny, blinking eyes near the roots of a massive cycad.

They weren’t monsters. At least, not yet.

They were Scutellosaurus—no bigger than modern iguanas, bipedal, and lightly armored. One of them, the largest, stood on its hind legs, its long tail acting as a rigid counterbalance while it browsed on low-hanging ferns. The others were crouched, grazing on the ground, their armored backs gleaming dully in the light—covered in hundreds of small osteoderms, like a miniature, living tank.

You moved slightly, and the sound of dry leaves snapped the silence. Instantly, all three snapped their heads towards you. The largest one let out a high-pitched, chirping hiss—a strange, delicate sound for a creature with teeth sharp enough to slice through tough vegetation. They didn’t run immediately, instead turning sideways, displaying their armored scutes as a defense mechanism, mimicking the protective posture of a tiny, bipedal iguana.