RAPTOR RED

MANURE, LOVE, AND FLOWERS JUNE

The male Utahraptor stands dead still in the shade of a cycad’s palmlike leaves. Usually he has the fearlessness of a young adult. He’s pumped full of hormones, and he has confidence in his muscles, his athleticism, his senses. He’s not afraid to attack strange plant-eaters three times his size. He has little reluctance to challenge a mature male Utahraptor a hundred pounds greater in bulk.

But now he’s afraid of the color red. The young male is unnerved by the mass of red-purple objects hanging from bushes and low trees a few hundred yards away. Here is more red in one place than he’s ever seen before. The six-foot-high wall of crimson stretches for a quarter-mile, and when the wind blows, the red objects undulate in a threatening manner.

The young male’s brain cannot cope. He can’t deal with this scarlet overdose - there’s no programmed instinct to make the proper choices when faced with so much color.

Red is the most evocative hue in evolution among land animals. Red is the color that elicits the strongest emotions in birds, in lizards, in frogs - and in Utahraptor. Red triggers courtship and mate-bonding. But red is also the color of blood, the cue to fear death.

The male raptor is used to handling red in small amounts. Red is the color he wears himself on the sides of his long muzzle. Red is the color he’s programmed to seek in a mate. The first time he saw Raptor Red, he responded strongly because she wore an especially bright oval patch of red on her snout.

Red is an eternal come-on. Long before the Cretaceous, red has transfixed the attention of animals with color vision. It shows up clearly against the green of foliage or the brown of soil. It’s a universal language that will be understood by parrots and apes and human beings long after the Cretaceous.

Reds and purples penetrate the environment and advertise their wearer as either a lover or a fighter; they are a loud message for females to come near and for other males to stay away.

Evolution is a smart cosmetician. The male raptor has a two-stage recognition system: First, he’s attracted to any raptor who wears the correct hue. Second, he scrutinizes the face for the correct pattern.

He saw this mass of color five miles off, and his subconscious made him investigate. Up till this moment, the male raptor has grown excited every time he’s seen a moving spot of red. But a hundred yards of scarlet and crimson is far too much stimulation. It overloads his circuits.

And that’s what he sees now in the woody shrubs growing in dense confusion at the base of the conifer wood: thousands of gaudy purplish-crimson blobs swaying in the wind. They are flowers. Primitive flowers with wide, simple petals arranged like a modern magnolia’s. The male raptor has never seen flowers before, and it’s a scary sight.

Plus, there is all this buzzing. The closer he gets to the wall of red, the louder the sound becomes - a million insect wings humming.

Utahraptor and all the other dinosaurs in its ecosystem have evolved in a world that’s overwhelmingly green and brown. All the trees have been conifers or palm-leafed cycads or tree ferns -plants that are flowerless. All the undergrowth has been ferns, ground pine, horsetails, and conifer seedlings - strictly green and brown in every case. Raptors are used to seeing brown cones hanging from conifers, and the dark spots on fern fronds that contain the reproductive spores. Brown and green, green and brown - that’s been the unbroken rule for every day the male raptor has lived. That’s the world he’s comfortable with.

Big gaudy flowers are a New Thing, and predators are very suspicious of New Things.

If the male raptor grew up in a dull green flower-less environment, the reason is simple: Flowering plants are evolutionary newcomers in his world. There were no flowers of any sort in the Jurassic Period, when the ancestors of raptors were being shaped by Darwinian forces. And when Utahraptor itself evolved, very early in the Cretaceous, the flora was still devoid of reproductive color.

As the male raptor was growing up, the most important revolution in land plant life was occurring. Here and there, hidden in isolated patches of disturbed forest, where drought and floods and grazing dinosaurs put great pressure on the woody plants, a totally new life-form appeared. It was a small tree that did not trust the wind to spread its pollen. Instead, it evolved a colorized welcome mat to attract bugs to visit - a mat constructed of modified leaves that became petals.

Purple and ultraviolet hues are visual bug-magnets. Once drawn to the petals, bugs are persuaded to linger, feeding on nutritious surplus pollen or at nectar pots built into the center of the flower. Then off the bugs will go to visit another floral attraction, each bug exporting pollen from the first flower.

The flower is a stupendously clever adaptive device. Not only does it have more efficient fertilization inside the female plant organ, the flower guarantees that pollen will be carried from one plant to another with far less waste than is possible among nonflowering plants.

Now, during the Early Cretaceous, Nature is adding other adaptive novelties - greater efficiency in growth of woody tissue - and so flowering plants are poised to make a momentous ecological leap. These plants will become the fastest-growing component of forests and woodlands in the middle and later days of the Cretaceous Period. By the time of Tyrannosaurus rex, forty million years after Utahraptor, every habitat will be brightened up by a profusion of flowers - red, orange, yellow, metallic blue.

Dinosaur eyes and dinosaur brains will become used to seeing bright colors in the undergrowth. But right now, at this moment in Utahraptor history, the unexpected appearance of purple flowers causes even more consternation among dinosaur societies than a spaceship from another galaxy, full of little green men, would cause in downtown Los Angeles in the modern era.

The young male becomes aware that he is not alone. The red flowers have acted like visual magnets, drawing in Utahraptor packs from all over. The big raptor species is usually rare. Its small clans are scattered widely, and except during the mating season, the families avoid each other. But the red-flowered shrubs are situated on a hill and can be seen by the keen-eyed predators thousands of yards away.

The young male notices two bachelor Utahraptor carefully tiptoeing on the other side of the bushes. They advance with knees and ankles flexed, bodies held low to the ground, necks lowered.

A gust of wind ripples the flowers unexpectedly, tossing a dozen petals into the air. The two bachelors turn and flee in full-speed retreat.

Farther away the young male sees a large Utah-raptor pack - six females, one adult male, and chicks. They sway back and forth, rising as high as they can on their toes, staring and sniffing loudly.

The young male jerks his snout up involuntarily. His nostrils flare as he draws in air in explosive bursts. It’s the flowers. They smell. They smell very strong - they smell deliciousl

They smell like overripe meat and liver mixed with fresh iguanodon dung.

He marches with deliberate steps, pausing to cock his head and examine the bushes. Closer, closer. The red color swamps his visual centers. But the aroma of rotting viscera and ripe herbivore feces is compelling.

He examines a patch of flower-heavy shrubs. There are three flower species growing together -one deep purple-red, one pale lavender, one white. All have petals arranged in a loose spiral around an odoriferous center. It’s the white one that smells like rotting meat. The purple-red flowers smell more like liver and old skin. The lavender ones are dung-scented.

Bfffffffft. A beetle blunders into his nostril, makes an annoying ruckus, and exits.

Bfffffffft-bffffft. More beetles buzz around the shrubs, drawn in by the meaty aroma. The male raptor knows this type of bug. They’re in the carrion beetle family, the sort of bugs who visit raptor kills to feed and deposit their eggs. Overripe stinky carcasses soon swarm with a wriggling mass of beetle larvae - voracious, hard-shelled maggots that gnaw off every residual scrap of flesh and leave the skeleton gleaming white.

Other bugs are walking all over the pinkish flowers, big beetle species with metallic green shells and wide antennae. The male raptor knows these too - he’s found them many times on manure piles left by plant-eating dinos. There are small black wasps and blue beetles too.

Now the male raptor is even more confused. Buzzing carrion-beetles should mean food - a carcass nearby. Dung beetles signal the presence of live herbivorous dinosaurs - prey waiting to be killed. But here among the flowers he can’t find any real iguanodon flesh, either on a dead carcass or on a living animal. And no real dung.

He nips at the white flowers. Bleachhhhh! The flowers are bitter. He spits them out, disgusted.

He’s learned a new lesson and files it away in his memory bank: Meat-smelling plants = fraud. He won’t be fooled again. But the bugs will be. The carrion beetles, wasps, and dung bugs have been drafted into the first wave of insect-flower co-evolution, species tricked by flower scents. In a few million years, carrion flies too will be fooled into helping pollination. Later still will come the pollinators par excellence - bees and moths and butterflies. But these later pollinators will be Darwinian sophisticates - they’ll require continuous co-evolutionary bribery to meet the expanding needs of more and more flower species. The flowering plants will have to offer brighter petals, more complicated pollen chambers, and sweeter nectar in great quantity.

Raptor Red has been watching the flowers too, following every movement of the young male. She’s anxious. She doesn’t like the mass of unknown red substance. She’s not intrigued with the carrion aroma. Something else has taken over her mind, an emotion stronger than confusion and inquisitive-ness - jealousy.

Raptor Red lifts her head very high, half closes her eyes, and makes short, loud sniffy noises. She sucks in air around the very front of her snout. It’s an instinctive action that most backboned animals use - you can see it today among horses in a barnyard. It’s a way of evaluating potential mates and potential sexual rivals.

The air drawn into Raptor Red’s mouth doesn’t go the usual route; aft to the center of smell, which is housed in a chamber just in front of her eyes. Instead, the air is diverted into a small, special channel far forward in the roof of her mouth. This channel leads to a special sensory region, the organ of Jacobson, reserved for pheromones, those potent perfumes of evolution.

Just a few pheromone molecules tell Raptor Red that she’s in danger of losing the young male. The breeze coming from the direction of the flowers carries the distinctive pheromones of three different female Utahraptor, and all three are in a state of sexual aggressiveness.

Raptor Red strides forward, directly toward the young male. The smell of manure + carrion from the flowers is almost suffocating, but her brain filters out the scent molecules. Her whole sensory being is focused on two groups of female raptors who are approaching her young male from the far side of the thicket.

She looks back at her sister, who’s pacing back and forth, flailing her long arms, and snarling and hissing at the flowers, at the unknown female raptors, and at the young male.

Raptor Red is relieved that her sister isn’t following her.

The young male is squatting down, his nose buried in a deep profusion of pink petals. His brain refuses to accept the notion that there’s no iguanodon dung down there.

He pops his head up, and sees that he’s surrounded by Utahraptor femininity. A strange female, much larger and older than he, is making head-bobbing movements of greeting. Another strange female, younger, taller, thinner, is making mock-charges, spreading her arms outward as she lowers her head. That’s a more intense courtship greeting, and it scares the male. He backs away.

Sssssss - rrrrrRK! The older female smacks the younger one with her tail and bites. For a second there’s a violent barrage of strikes and counter strikes, as arms and feet, tails and necks slash back and forth.

The younger female retreats, crying loudly. Clumps of skin, ripped off her back, drift down onto the flowers. The older female turns toward the young male and repeats a courtship dance three times, getting closer and closer to the male.

He forgets about the manure-scented flowers. He’s scared of the big female. He hasn’t been fought over before. He’s engaged in courtship dances - six times last year he tried out his mating choreography, and six times he was rejected by assorted females. Each time it was a one-on-one situation. He performed, and a single female reacted.

This year he tried once, with Raptor Red. She gave him equivocal responses, her enthusiasm damped by her sister’s presence. Utahraptor courtships between first-time breeders can last for months, since it takes a long time to cement male and female together in a pair-bond. And first-time couples that finally do bond may not actually reproduce until the next season.

Raptor Red isn’t the ideal mate, if her situation were evaluated by some dispassionate computer. The sister is an obvious liability. Still, the young male is captivated by her. Something about Raptor Red makes him want to hang around, to try to make the pair-bond firm. Raptor Red has been gentle in all her responses to his advances, and he finds that attractive.

SKKKKKAWK!

The big strange female is growing agitated. The presence of so many Utahraptors in one spot is heating up emotions. The sight and scent of the flowers have caused an unnatural concentration of unattached females. The young male finds himself in the unwanted status of Most Desirable Male. It’s a self-amplifying situation. As soon as one female pays attention to him, the other females shift their efforts toward courting him.

It’s a universal phenomenon - if you appear desirable, more members of the opposite sex will desire you. The appearance of popularity automatically raises your popularity. It’s not a bad evolutionary system - if you see a potential mate being pursued by members of the opposite sex, it pays to check it out. There’s a better-than-even chance the potential mate has some superior quality that will lead to a brood of high-survival kids.

SKKKAWWK! An even larger female Utahraptor now interrupts the scene, cutting in on the older female who’s been displaying to the young male. This newly arrived female is stupendous - two hundred pounds bigger than he is - and is totally buffed, with huge muscles in her shoulders, thighs, and calves.

He tries to look away, to avoid having to give a response to the dance. She wheels around, coming at him sideways.

'Skrrawk… skrrawk… skrrawk. '

She’s insistent. She repeats the beginning moves of the courtship routine, demanding that he reply.

He steps sideways. There’s another strange female, more slender than the dinosaur Valkyrie in front of him. She has an exceptionally bright red snout-patch. He nods to her.

She nods back and commences a low-key dance.

'Sssssssssss. ' The big female lurches, half dancing, half threatening, her mouth wide open. She turns toward the young female, then back to the male, then back to the young female.

The young female looks away, avoiding eye contact. She turns and slides sideways, putting distance between herself and the Valkyrie.

The young male feels his Jacobson organ fill up with dueling pheromones. A dozen female Utah-raptors have opened up their throat-glands, narrow slits on the underside of their lower jaws. Each gland releases a potent cocktail of sexually provocative molecules.

The giant female advances fast, in a series of runs. He can’t avoid looking at her massive muzzle.

THHHHHHNK!

He’s bumped very hard. This female is very insistent - and pissed off that he refuses to play his part in the ritual. The raptor dance is a duet. One partner makes a move, and the other must respond, inducing the first partner to continue. Either partner can break off the ceremony, but usually the breakup comes after the two partners have danced for many minutes, checking each other out, evaluating size, vigor, health, and athletic prowess.

Thnk! He gets another forceful nudge from the monstrous female. Her behavior is becoming uncontrolled - stoked by unnatural levels of competitiveness.

He still refuses to join the duet.

Snp.

He flinches. He can see a tiny red spot at the base of his shoulder. She’s bitten him. Love and hate are adjacent emotions in the mating season. • FWWWNNK!

A flying object sends the huge female sprawling twelve feet. She slides on her back into the flowers, gets up and emits shrieks of rage, beating the branches with fury. An avalanche of pink flowers cascades down from the tree and gradually hides her from view.

The young male draws himself up to full height and stares at the object that collided with the giant female.

It’s Raptor Red.

The young male tries to make himself look as small as possible. He lowers his body and lays his head down among the purple-pink flowers. He knows he’s about to be fought over by two female Utahraptors. He’s seen this happen to other males - and it’s not an event he’s ever looked forward to.

The giant female lying on the ground puffs out her chest and hisses. She contracts her finger-flexing muscles so that Raptor Red can see the tendons, thick as pine saplings, bulging at the wrist. The female Goliath looks awkward and clumsy sprawled out on her backside, so Raptor Red advances, making her own hissing threats.

But with one quick push-off from her thighs, the female rolls over, throws her torso four feet into the air, and lands on her feet. It’s a marvelously graceful motion. Raptor Red takes a short step backward. The giant female bobs her head in a slow, exaggerated movement, as if to acknowledge the unspoken admiration for the move. And then she turns to the young male and makes a low, hoarse cooing noise.

Raptor Red half closes her eyelids and jumps forward, howling a threat-call that makes the young male cringe. But the giant female doesn’t move an inch. Instead, she chomps her jaws together noisily, showing the gleaming-white row of recurved teeth. The young male can’t help noticing that those teeth are of exceptional dimensions for a Utahmptor.

He sees the giant female’s eyes locked with Raptor Red’s, and he takes the opportunity to move out of the way a few yards to the right. The giant shifts her gaze for half a second, gives him an eyelid threat that means Now don’t YOU move! and returns her stare to Raptor Red.

Raptor Red fought some female-female battles when she courted her first consort, years ago. It was all puffery and shadowboxing, the combatants making fake charges and indulging in grandiose gestures with head and arms. Raptor Red discovered she was very proficient at this sort of Darwinian histrionics.

The giant female won’t play this game. She makes no theatrical movements. She just sways back and forth on her hindlegs, the motion that raptors use just before they lunge forward to kill.

Raptor Red watches the giant’s ankles. One, two, three swaying cycles. There’s an almost imperceptible pause, and the ankle tendon tenses. Raptor Red throws herself to the left.

Whmmmmp! The giant’s hindclaws land on the spot where Raptor Red had stood.

SssssssSSS. The long arms swing outward and a claw tip rips a thin, shallow wound down Raptor Red’s calf.

Raptor Red retreats another three yards. She stares at the giant’s chest - it rises and falls slowly, evenly. The female giant isn’t breathing hard, and that makes her much scarier.

Raptor Red’s thoughts evaluate the dreadful situation. That one isn’t normal… She’s not a courtship-competitor… She’s a murderess.

Raptor Red makes a high-pitched distress call. She listens for her sister’s response. There is none. She repeats the call. Sisters are supposed to help each other in tough situations like this one. Normal Utahraptor genes are coded for dual-courtship, when two sisters join together to win a desirable mate.

Raptor Red tries the sister-assistance call once more, but she already knows that no help will come. She knows that her sister-bond isn’t a normal one.

The female giant takes a few long, smooth strides in the direction of the young male. Raptor Red notes that the giant isn’t merely huge - she’s also quite limber and possesses great balance.

Raptor Red isn’t ready to give up - not yet. She gives ground slowly, keeping enough space between her and the giant so she can dodge the next attack. The giant tenses. Raptor Red jumps. But she’s been fooled - the giant doesn’t lunge.

Raptor Red feels a twinge of panic. She begins to worry not just about losing this courtship fight, but losing her life.

The giant’s eyes are bright yellowish orange and show no emotion other than a steady confidence. Raptor Red stops monitoring the ankles and watches the giant’s eyelids.

The two females make a slow half-circle, the giant advancing to her left, Raptor Red retreating to her right. And then Raptor Red sees a slight flutter in the giant’s eyes, a contraction of the pupil. The big female holds her breath for a moment, exhales noisily, and moves her weight back on her right foot and tail.

Raptor Red feels the hot breath of another dinosaur behind her left shoulder. She doesn’t have to turn around - she knows from the musky scent that it’s her consort. He starts to hiss, louder and louder.

The giant hesitates, then very slowly backs up. Raptor Red is now shoulder-to-shoulder with her consort, and they raise and lower their heads together, smacking their jaws open and shut. He snaps his muzzle forward and bites at the air a few feet from the giant’s nose.

The female Goliath knows she’s beaten. These two Utahraptors work as one double-headed adversary, and their demeanor shows that they will attack in another step or two.

The big female sighs, her head lowers, and her body language becomes submissive. She’s very sad. All day males have rejected her. All day her unusual size has caused anxiety in potential mates. She’s the victim of discrimination built into the courtship instinct, the inbred distrust of anyone who is too different from the norm.

With her body held low, the unhappy giant walks away, not looking back.

Raptor Red bumps her forehead against her consort’s, and they make cooing noises. The male grooms the nape of her neck with his small front teeth, smells the wound on her leg, and licks it gently.