Where are all the European Cretaceous dinosaurs?
Okay, paleontology people! I am writing a novel, set in Europe, about a forest spirit that can turn into a microraptor. Yes, crows aren’t majestic enough for me. It’s really got to be a microraptor from Europe, so it can be totemic to the geographical area.
Viking vs dinosaurs, basically. I know this sounds really dumb, and that is because it is. I’m no J. K. Rowling.
PROBLEM: What is now Europe seems to have a limited record of Cretaceous dinosaurs. All microraptorids seem to be found only in what is today China and Mongolia. I haven’t found any that lived in West Laurasia.
If none have been found, would it be plausible to assume some small populations migrated and became indigenous to Europe? Like how modern fauna is considerably homogenously-distributed all over Eurasia today.
Oh and archaeopterixes won’t do, I want a real fantastical-looking “bird”, with four wings and teeth and all.
My only other option is to change the historical setting of the story to China, which will take months of research.
(also I’m not actually an otherkin tapir, I’m signing in with facebook and that is my joke name. No offence to actual otherkin tapirs meant.)
Thank you! 🙂
3
Answers
There are thousand upon thusand of dinosaur species that have not been discovered, why not use one of those?
I.e. make one up.
The microraptors were birds, not dinosaurs. Birds have light weight, hollow bones, and therefore they are rarely preserved as fossils. The site in Northeastern China that has preserved so many birds in such exquisite detail, including Microraptor, is extremely rare, even rarer than sites like Sohnhofen in Germany. Therefore, just because Cretaceous bird fossils are rare in Europe does not mean that they did not exist. For example, Eoalulavis is an early Cretaceous bird from Spain and Bauxitornis is known from Late Cretaceous Hungary. There were also many Cretaceous bird fossils from North and South America, Central Asia and of course, China and Mongolia, informing us that birds have spread far and wide around the World by the late Cretaceous.