You are in the oceans of Europe, 180 million years ago.

The water of the Early Jurassic Tethys Ocean was exceptionally clear, a calm blue broken only by the sun’s rays penetrating the upper layers. You were drifting, barely moving, when a sleek, grey-brown shadow cut across the light. Then another. And another.

A pod of five—no, six—Stenopterygius appeared from the gloom, moving with a synchronicity that felt instantly modern, despite their ancient nature. The ichthyosaurs were small compared to the monsters of the deep, perhaps only two to three meters long, but their speed was breathtaking. Their streamlined, dolphin-like bodies moved with a rapid lateral flick of their vertical tails, turning the water into a shimmering blur.

One turned its head, its massive eye—the size of a dinner plate—fixing on you for a split second. There was no menace, only intense, biological calculation.