The Future Is Wild –Episode Three The Vanished Sea

The Scrofa and Gryken

Today on Far Future Horizons we are going to take a voyage five million years into the future and tour the once sunny waters of the Mediterranean.

The Cryptile

The episode is set in what was the Mediterranean Sea in 5,000,000 years time. It features four species: (1) Cryptile, a lizard with a sticky frill to catch flies which it can then lick off at its leisure; (2) Scrofa, a descendant of the wild boar which has developed spindly legs to allow it to live on the rocky islands in the desert; (3) Gryken, a descendant of the pine marten which hunts Scrofa in the cracked rocks of the landscape; (4) brine flies.

Gryken

Before this time in the future, the northern tip of Africa has collided with the southern tip of Spain, thus enclosing the Mediterranean inland. It has since dried up to become an enormous salt desert with a few lakes of ultra-saline water, as it was during the Messinian salinity crisis. The holiday islands that used to be in the sea are now mountains scattered throughout the desert.

The episode starts with two cryptiles mating. Then the female cryptile goes looking for grykes to lay her eggs, for if they were laid in the salt they would shrivel up and die. After she laid her eggs she is chased by a gryken but escapes for grykens only have short bursts speed. The gryken hunts by crawling through the grykes and captures its prey by surprise .

The Scrofa

The gryken then hunts scrofas it fails and is chase by an adult male. Scrofas eat grass that grows between the grykes and cryptile eggs. The gryken tries a second time and succeeds. However a baby scrofa gets lost in the process and wanders into a the salt plains it spots a cryptile eating brine flies. Soon the baby scrofa dies. Then there is a scene were scrofas are grazing the narrator explains how some animals survived such as pigs, lizards, and pine martens.

The Future Is Wild –Episode Three The Vanished Sea

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