The Vampire Dragonfly

The island was so full of hitherto unknown species that it was some time before we noticed the curious omission. We saw a beetle as big as a small dog and a flightless bird the size of a bear. But there were no mammals. We four were the only warm-blooded creatures not covered in feathers.

It appeared that members of the classes reptilia, insecta and avia had evolved to fill the positions left vacant by the absence of mammalia. There were vampire dragonflies which fed upon the blood of the large, grazing birds that roamed the grasslands in the centre of the island. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that these bloodsuckers had no objection to human haemoglobin. The cow-like birds were preyed upon by lizards as large as lions.

The expedition’s naturalist remarked that the only mammal for which we had not seen a local counterpart was homo sapiens. We laughed, but I thought about some of the three-toed footprints, as big as a man’s, that we had seen on the first day. At the time, we had thought nothing of them but, looking back, they now seemed to have a familiar pattern. As though the lizard that made them walked upon two legs.