You are in the swamplands of Mongolia, Asia, 70 million years ago.

The swampy banks of the ancient floodplain were quiet, disturbed only by the soft slosh-slosh of a rising tide. What appeared instead was a hulking, surreal silhouette that defied everything you thought you knew about theropod dinosaurs.

It was colossal, easily as long as a bus, but it lumbered rather than ran. A dense coating of primitive, brownish feathers covered a hunchbacked frame, the spine arching into a high hump that suggested incredible muscle or fat storage. Then, you saw the face, not the menacing snarl of a tyrannosaur, but a broad, flat, toothless duck-like bill, dipping into the shallow water with clumsy precision.

As it turned, you saw the 8-foot-long arms folded awkwardly near its chest, ending in massive, blunt claws. It wasn't using them to hunt. It used them like a gargantuan, feathered panda, raking through submerged water plants, grabbing mouthfuls of vegetation and perhaps a few small, panicked fish, which it swallowed with the help of those strange, terrible talons.

The Deinocheirus took no notice of you, too focused on its wet, leafy buffet.