After a long dormant volcano suddenly becomes active again, a nest of mysterious eggs are unearthed and begin to hatch, revealing themselves as prehistoric pterodactyls.

After stopping to use the bathroom, Willis trips over a tree and falls into a mound of urine, which they suspect to belong to birds.

After systematically eliminating several terrorist camps in the area, the squad finally locates and captures Yolen.

After getting clear of the area, Michael questions the presence of the soldiers, and Bergen says that he and his squad members have been assigned to capture Yolen by hand.

Bergen and his squad initially have no interest in helping escort Michael and his group to safety, believing their mission to be of the utmost importance.

Bergen identifies an alpha pterodactyl, noticeable by the many scars that adorn its body, and Michael surmises that if they were to kill it, the rest of the flock would be too unorganized to attack again.

Meanwhile, in the nest, Kate manages to grab the radio from Clarke, who has been feasted on by the baby pterodactyls, and contacts Bergen.

Serling traverses the line to rescue Kate, but during the return trip, the pterodactyls awaken and begin attacking.

Many of the characters are named after famous science-fiction and fantasy writers—Bradbury (Ray Bradbury), Burroughs (Edgar Rice Burroughs), Clarke (Sir Arthur C. Clarke), Donaldson (Steven Donaldson), Heinlein (Robert A. Heinlein), Herbert (Frank Herbert), Lem (Stanislaw Lem), Lovecraft (H. P. Lovecraft), Serling (Rod Serling), Yolen (Jane Yolen) and Zelazny (Roger Zelazny).

Despite the dialogue indicating that the events are taking place on the Turkish–Armenian border (a dry, rocky, mountainous area), the landscape in the film is wooded forestland with open grassy knolls in the Czech Republic.