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Description
50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch in a river running through the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, a wanderer from the sea has found itself strayed into a world of creatures it wouldn't see in its ocean home. A large bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) had swam upriver and is now far from the coast, but fortunately for it, it is able to tolerate freshwater habitats too. The wildlife in a jungle river is not like what it is used to seeing. A Neochen pugil, a large goose, swims on the surface above it. A pair of Ahytherium aureum swim past the shark. These large mammals are a type of aquatic sloth, and while the shark could well hunt them, the bull shark doesn't really recognize them as prey but is still quite curious about them. For now the sloths and the shark are able to coexist rather peacefully in this river.

Drawing made for Shark Week 2021 which I had only just found out about despite it starting three days ago. Unfortunately, most animals depicted in the drawing are now extinct, but the bull shark is one that still exists today. The bull shark is found in warm and temperate waters across the world and commonly grows around 2.4 meters long, though exceptionally large specimens are known to reach a length of 4 meters. This large predator preys mainly on fish, including smaller sharks, but will also take on sea turtles, marine mammals and invertebrates, and is even known to kill humans (though it tends to prefer other prey, it sometimes mistakes humans for its usual food. We need to give up the "monster shark that loves killing people" stereotype already). While the species lives mainly in saltwater, its body is able to tolerate fresh water and so it has been found far inland living in lakes and rivers too. The bull shark can live its entire life in freshwater, but usually individuals that stray into rivers will return to saltwater to breed. The bull shark has also existed for quite a long time, with fossil remains believed to belong to this still-extant species found dating as far back as the Miocene epoch (around 15 million years ago) in South America. By the Pleistocene it would probably have already reached its near-worldwide distribution it has today.

Ahytherium is an extinct sloth of the family Megalonychidae, most famous for giant ground sloths like Megalonyx. It is known from a specimen of a juvenile described in 2008 and the adult may have reached a size of a bit over 2 meters. Interestingly, it's tail shape suggests it may have been a skilled swimmer and the animal may be semiaquatic like a capybara or beaver. I wouldn't find that too ridiculous of a theory given that extant sloths actually swim quite well and Thalassocnus was a thing. Maybe it dived for aquatic plants, or fed on terrestrial vegetation despite spending much time in water like a hippopotamus. Too bad it's extinct now.

Neochen pugil is a rather large waterbird of the Anatidae family with other geese and ducks. The genus it belongs to actually has one living species, the Orinoco goose (N. jubata) . N. pugil was a bit larger than its extant relative but was overall quite similar and even exhibited similar sexual dimorphism. But apart from that I can't find a lot of information on it. First N. pugil on DA!

Description
50,000 years ago during the Pleistocene epoch in a river running through the Atlantic Forest in Brazil, a wanderer from the sea has found itself strayed into a world of creatures it wouldn't see in its ocean home. A large bull shark (Carcharhinus leucas) had swam upriver and is now far from the coast, but fortunately for it, it is able to tolerate freshwater habitats too. The wildlife in a jungle river is not like what it is used to seeing. A Neochen pugil, a large goose, swims on the surface above it. A pair of Ahytherium aureum swim past the shark. These large mammals are a type of aquatic sloth, and while the shark could well hunt them, the bull shark doesn't really recognize them as prey but is still quite curious about them. For now the sloths and the shark are able to coexist rather peacefully in this river.

Drawing made for Shark Week 2021 which I had only just found out about despite it starting three days ago. Unfortunately, most animals depicted in the drawing are now extinct, but the bull shark is one that still exists today. The bull shark is found in warm and temperate waters across the world and commonly grows around 2.4 meters long, though exceptionally large specimens are known to reach a length of 4 meters. This large predator preys mainly on fish, including smaller sharks, but will also take on sea turtles, marine mammals and invertebrates, and is even known to kill humans (though it tends to prefer other prey, it sometimes mistakes humans for its usual food. We need to give up the "monster shark that loves killing people" stereotype already). While the species lives mainly in saltwater, its body is able to tolerate fresh water and so it has been found far inland living in lakes and rivers too. The bull shark can live its entire life in freshwater, but usually individuals that stray into rivers will return to saltwater to breed. The bull shark has also existed for quite a long time, with fossil remains believed to belong to this still-extant species found dating as far back as the Miocene epoch (around 15 million years ago) in South America. By the Pleistocene it would probably have already reached its near-worldwide distribution it has today.

Ahytherium is an extinct sloth of the family Megalonychidae, most famous for giant ground sloths like Megalonyx. It is known from a specimen of a juvenile described in 2008 and the adult may have reached a size of a bit over 2 meters. Interestingly, it's tail shape suggests it may have been a skilled swimmer and the animal may be semiaquatic like a capybara or beaver. I wouldn't find that too ridiculous of a theory given that extant sloths actually swim quite well and Thalassocnus was a thing. Maybe it dived for aquatic plants, or fed on terrestrial vegetation despite spending much time in water like a hippopotamus. Too bad it's extinct now.

Neochen pugil is a rather large waterbird of the Anatidae family with other geese and ducks. The genus it belongs to actually has one living species, the Orinoco goose (N. jubata) . N. pugil was a bit larger than its extant relative but was overall quite similar and even exhibited similar sexual dimorphism. But apart from that I can't find a lot of information on it. First N. pugil on DA!