Whenever I'm stuck freezing in a big snow storm my mind wonders to the very place I happen to be sat and how different it was some time in the distant past. Most of Illinois was a wetland of ginkgoes, horsetails, huge cycads and fern trees along the coast of the Western Interior Seaway (Niobraran Sea). I imagine 153 million years ago, in the Late Jurassic, on this very day, a little Ornitholestes might have been sneaking around looking for small mammals, reptiles and eggs to snack on right where I am now. His day was probably better than mine...