By, Jess Judd
Have you ever wondered how crocodiles and alligators managed to outlive the
Well, here’s how they did it.
Long ago, during the Mesozoic era, there lived two clans of awe-inspiring creatures.
There were the Sarcosuchus, the ‘super-crocs’, and the Deinosuchus, the ‘gateroids’. These gigantic beasts are the ancestors of our current day crocodiles and alligators.
Towards the end of what we now know as the Cretaceous period, the super-crocs
became aware of a cataclysmic event, big enough to wipe out life on the planet. They
didn’t know exactly what would happen, but they knew it would be happening soon.
The super-crocs and gateroids were exceptionally smart, much more intelligent than the
crocs and gators we know today. They decided the best way to escape extinction would
be to build a rocket to take them all into space.
And they did!
They worked tirelessly for months on end, and eventually, they completed their rocket.
The super-crocs and gateroids gathered everything they thought they might need to
support their clans in space and blasted off.
Their trajectory turned out to be a little wonky, however, and instead of heading out into deep space to find a new planet to rebuild their civilization, their rocket flew straight toward the moon.
They landed on the moon, and the arguments began.
The gateroids blamed the super-crocs for landing them on the moon, as they had been
in charge of the trajectory mechanics. The super-crocs blamed the gateroids, as they
had been in charge of packing the cargo hold. They said it hadn’t been packed correctly
and had thrown their trajectory off course.
In the end, the two clans parted ways.
The gateroids built themselves a gigantic dome, with a large village underneath it for them to live in. The super-crocs, the more intelligent of the two, built themselves several giant structures, that sat on or hovered just above the surface of the moon. They used these structures not only to live in but also to watch over the Earth.
From these structures, they saw the mountain-sized meteor hurtling through space towards the Earth. They watched as it blasted through the atmosphere, streaking through the sky like a fireball, brighter than the sun, and slammed into the Earth.
The super-crocs watched as the earth surrounding the impact zone spontaneously burst
into flame. Then came the massive tsunami, over 1000 feet high, flooding the land.
Almost ten minutes after the impact the Earth was covered by hot ash, grit, and rubble
falling from the sky. As the pieces of earth that had been thrown into the sky descended
back through the atmosphere, a glowing red shower of what looked like shooting stars
lit up the quickly darkening skies.
The super-crocs then had trouble even seeing the Earth, as the ash and debris in the atmosphere around the globe got in the way. They imagined anything left alive on the Earth would be living in a kind of perpetual twilight for many years to come.
The super-crocs monitored the Earth for a very long time after the meteor hit, and
eventually, they decided it might be habitable again. By this stage, the super-crocs and
gateroids had started speaking again, and whilst some of them decided they wanted to
stay living on the moon, a large number from both clans wanted to return to the Earth.
They thought with the dinosaurs extinct, they would be able to control the other animals
and be kings of the Earth. However, by the time they returned to the planet, humans
had taken over, and the super-crocs and gateroids had to hide themselves away in the
rivers, lakes, and oceans where the humans couldn’t hunt them.
Living in the waterways dulled their intelligence and stunted their growth and they became the crocodiles and alligators we know today. However, they have always longed to return to the moon, to their brothers and sisters in space. Without their intelligence, they can’t get there, but they will try to get as high in the sky as they can.
So if you ever see a crocodile or an alligator up in a tree, you’ll know they are trying to
get back to their clan, trying to escape to space.
About the Author
Jess’s love for reading was fostered at an early age, by listening to her father read to her from authors like JR Tolkien and CS Lewis. Reading these, and other authors, was her inspiration to start writing her own stories. Fast forward to today, Jess lives in Perth, Western Australia with her two kids, and she loves writing stories for children and being a part of Bedtime FM, a podcast network that is working to foster a love of literature in children all around the globe.