custer national forest

When most folks think about our grand and beautiful national forests they probably don’t conjure up images of a fearsome Tyrannosaurus rex munching on his morning prey or a gentle Brachiosaurus chewing enough leaves to nearly fell a small forest just to fill her vegetarian stomach.

But millions of years ago this was exactly what was happening on lands that today comprise national forests and grasslands like the Thunder Basin National Grassland.

The big female sniffed at the dry Late Cretaceous air as she trotted – delicately, considering her 7-ton frame – along a game trail through a stand of towering conifers, whose needled lower branches trembled slightly at her passing.