New species of dinosaur discovered in Thailand
July 31, 2023 10:07 PM Subscribe
New species of dinosaur discovered in Thailand. Researchers say the young creature, which was about the size of a dog, is one of the best-preserved dinosaurs ever found in South-East Asia.
He says it is a "very special" find.
"I'm 34 years old and, well, I found a new dinosaur. It's very, very exciting," Dr Manitkoon says.
everything about this is great, the little chibi drawing of the new dinosaur is great, Dr. Manitkoon wearing a t-shirt with new dinosaur on it is great, I love new dinosaur
posted by taquito sunrise at 4:34 AM on August 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
"I'm 34 years old and, well, I found a new dinosaur. It's very, very exciting," Dr Manitkoon says.
everything about this is great, the little chibi drawing of the new dinosaur is great, Dr. Manitkoon wearing a t-shirt with new dinosaur on it is great, I love new dinosaur
posted by taquito sunrise at 4:34 AM on August 1, 2023 [9 favorites]
There's probably a bunch of future dinosaurs just laying buried in layers of rock all over the planet!
Being snarky, but this is really cool. Thanks for the post.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:35 AM on August 1, 2023
Being snarky, but this is really cool. Thanks for the post.
posted by SoberHighland at 4:35 AM on August 1, 2023
Came here to say exactly what taquito sunrise has already said.
Also: it's early here and this is the first thing I've looked at today upon waking up.
Minimocursor phunoiensis
I squinted very hard at this name for a good several beats trying to figure out what was going on.
posted by phunniemee at 4:46 AM on August 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
Also: it's early here and this is the first thing I've looked at today upon waking up.
Minimocursor phunoiensis
I squinted very hard at this name for a good several beats trying to figure out what was going on.
posted by phunniemee at 4:46 AM on August 1, 2023 [5 favorites]
"I'm 34 years old and, well, I found a new dinosaur. It's very, very exciting," Dr Manitkoon says.
taquito sunrise, I thought exactly the same thing. We are looking at a man who decided, probably when he was eight years old, that he loved dinosaurs and nobody was going to stop him from being a Doctor Of Dinosaurs, and now a quarter century later here he is, with PhD (that secretly stands for "Philosophy, Dinosaurs"), announcing the discovery of a new dinosaur, wearing a shirt with the dinosaur he discovered on it, like his eight-year-old self dug up a genie's lamp while he was playing dinosaurs in his back yard, made three dinosaur-related wishes and the genie just let it ride.
Dr. Manitkoon is living his best life and bringing the rest of us new dinosaurs while he's at it, incredible.
posted by mhoye at 4:48 AM on August 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
taquito sunrise, I thought exactly the same thing. We are looking at a man who decided, probably when he was eight years old, that he loved dinosaurs and nobody was going to stop him from being a Doctor Of Dinosaurs, and now a quarter century later here he is, with PhD (that secretly stands for "Philosophy, Dinosaurs"), announcing the discovery of a new dinosaur, wearing a shirt with the dinosaur he discovered on it, like his eight-year-old self dug up a genie's lamp while he was playing dinosaurs in his back yard, made three dinosaur-related wishes and the genie just let it ride.
Dr. Manitkoon is living his best life and bringing the rest of us new dinosaurs while he's at it, incredible.
posted by mhoye at 4:48 AM on August 1, 2023 [16 favorites]
The good doctor's instagram is also very good.
posted by phunniemee at 4:54 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by phunniemee at 4:54 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
On average, a new species of “terrible lizard” is named about every two weeks from fossil sites all over the world.
posted by logicpunk at 5:25 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by logicpunk at 5:25 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
Who doesn’t love a new dinosaur?
To be honest, I didn’t even realize they were still making new ones.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:20 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
To be honest, I didn’t even realize they were still making new ones.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 6:20 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
To be honest, I didn’t even realize they were still making new ones.
I'm oddly enthusiastic about the idea of seeing the world as a huge dinosaur-skeleton thrift shop.
posted by mhoye at 6:25 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
I'm oddly enthusiastic about the idea of seeing the world as a huge dinosaur-skeleton thrift shop.
posted by mhoye at 6:25 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
To be honest, I didn’t even realize they were still making new ones.
As noted above, they are still making a LOT of new ones -- more now than ever before in paleontological history. If this is your cup of tea, I strongly recommend the podcast Terrible Lizards (now in its ninth season!) with Iszi Lawrence and Dr. David Hone. It's always interesting, often hilarious (in a dry Brit way), and you'll learn a ton.
posted by The Bellman at 6:29 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
As noted above, they are still making a LOT of new ones -- more now than ever before in paleontological history. If this is your cup of tea, I strongly recommend the podcast Terrible Lizards (now in its ninth season!) with Iszi Lawrence and Dr. David Hone. It's always interesting, often hilarious (in a dry Brit way), and you'll learn a ton.
posted by The Bellman at 6:29 AM on August 1, 2023 [3 favorites]
Every one of my English teachers, especially Miss Shoe, the one who threatened to staple all of our noses shut, would be appalled that the incorrect term "new" was being used in place of "newly discovered."
posted by The Half Language Plant at 7:14 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by The Half Language Plant at 7:14 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
(No offense to Miss Shoe, but I think that's kind of the joke, right?)
posted by The Bellman at 7:43 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by The Bellman at 7:43 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
Who doesn’t love a new dinosaur?
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
because so many things are so terrible and upsetting right now, but there are people out there looking for, and finding new dinos, and this is the sort of news that lifts my spirits and makes me feel some hope. MOAR DINOS!!!!
posted by supermedusa at 8:58 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
because so many things are so terrible and upsetting right now, but there are people out there looking for, and finding new dinos, and this is the sort of news that lifts my spirits and makes me feel some hope. MOAR DINOS!!!!
posted by supermedusa at 8:58 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I think I have favorited every comment in this thread. I would favorite mhoye's a million times if I could.
also, not to go there, but hey I'm me, Dr. Manitkoon is pretty cute!
posted by supermedusa at 9:05 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
also, not to go there, but hey I'm me, Dr. Manitkoon is pretty cute!
posted by supermedusa at 9:05 AM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]
OMG THE DRAWING!
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:31 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by Abehammerb Lincoln at 9:31 AM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I also love that new dinosaur smell.
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:18 PM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:18 PM on August 1, 2023 [2 favorites]
I don't mean to devalue Dr. Manitkoon's lifetime of work, of course, but ...
An eight-year-old child with bright eyes, a dinosaur backpack and a little shovel in hand digs a hole under the furthest tree in their back yard. He hears a little "clink", but it doesn't sound like a rock. Excited, he unearths a strange bronze vessel, like the old lamps his grandmother burns incense in, but... heavier.
There's no mythos in this child's culture of genies and lamps; he's too young to understand the stories about the steep price of selfish wishes, the cursed fate of those in the hands of the trickster's particular reading. The deep, cold water that rushes past under the thin ice walked by careless power, the slow curl of the monkey's paw.
He starts to rubs the lamp clean.
The spirit that emerges from this long-lost lamp is gaudy and resplendent, radiating an ancient power that seems to hum and crack just out of earshot, completely out of place in every form and scale that might suit this idly pastoral backdrop. It looms above the child, somehow both vast beyond imagining and merely too tall, too broad. Resonating as though a forgotten temple had found its voice, it speaks: "You, who have released my from my ancient prison, know that I will uphold the covenant. I will grant the three boons. Thrice, what is within my power to grant will be yours.
Wide eyed, the child responds "is a boon ... like a wish?"
The genie smiles; this guileless child is the only soul near. T
"Indeed."
"I want to be a doctor."
The smiles turns a corner the child cannot recognize; patronizing, predatory. What luck, that it is so easy.
"Very good, may your w..."
"A dinosaur doctor."
For the first time in uncountable aeons the genie is taken aback.
"You want to be... a what?"
"I want to be a dinosaur doctor and I want to find dinosaurs."
"... what"
"Oh! And I want my own shirt with my dinosaur I find on it."
"... you ... A dinosaur doctor, you say."
"Yes and I want to find dinosaurs."
"Have you considered ... Wealth? Power? Strength, beauty?"
"No."
"Empire? Mountaintop palaces, grand vistas?"
"I don't want a mounty visty, I want to be a dinosaur doctor."
"And a dinosaur shirt, you say."
"_My_ dinosaur shirt. I want my own dinosaur I found on a shirt."
The spirits can See deep into the folded contortions of the human spirit, the twisting ochre contradictions of a lifetime of justifications, self deceptions and lies, the gnawing tendrils of envy, lust, desperation and greed so common in those who've sought out his kind, and this one is fascinated that there is none of that before him. He has been summoned, somehow, by this uncomplicated form, by these untainted colours, vibrant and whole. Where would he reach into this to set the hook, he wonders, to anchor the final turn of this child's fate?
And then for the first time in as many aeons, he finds himself wondering... why?
The cursed fate of those who seek the lamp's prisoners is its own justification, its own poetry. None who could See those whose wishes would ever think otherwise; the reason is there, sufficient and indisputable before them, corroded, vile and eminently, universally human.
Except, somehow, here and now.
The genie knows with a cosmic certainty that the contortions, the justifications and contradictions will come to this child in time. It cannot be otherwise. But they are not here now; perhaps that balancing will be set before another spirit on another day.
"Very well. You wish to become a Doctor of Dinosaurs? You wish to discover new dinosaurs, and you wish to have a shirt with the dinosaur you have discovered on it?"
"Yes."
"Done."
posted by mhoye at 7:36 AM on August 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
An eight-year-old child with bright eyes, a dinosaur backpack and a little shovel in hand digs a hole under the furthest tree in their back yard. He hears a little "clink", but it doesn't sound like a rock. Excited, he unearths a strange bronze vessel, like the old lamps his grandmother burns incense in, but... heavier.
There's no mythos in this child's culture of genies and lamps; he's too young to understand the stories about the steep price of selfish wishes, the cursed fate of those in the hands of the trickster's particular reading. The deep, cold water that rushes past under the thin ice walked by careless power, the slow curl of the monkey's paw.
He starts to rubs the lamp clean.
The spirit that emerges from this long-lost lamp is gaudy and resplendent, radiating an ancient power that seems to hum and crack just out of earshot, completely out of place in every form and scale that might suit this idly pastoral backdrop. It looms above the child, somehow both vast beyond imagining and merely too tall, too broad. Resonating as though a forgotten temple had found its voice, it speaks: "You, who have released my from my ancient prison, know that I will uphold the covenant. I will grant the three boons. Thrice, what is within my power to grant will be yours.
Wide eyed, the child responds "is a boon ... like a wish?"
The genie smiles; this guileless child is the only soul near. T
"Indeed."
"I want to be a doctor."
The smiles turns a corner the child cannot recognize; patronizing, predatory. What luck, that it is so easy.
"Very good, may your w..."
"A dinosaur doctor."
For the first time in uncountable aeons the genie is taken aback.
"You want to be... a what?"
"I want to be a dinosaur doctor and I want to find dinosaurs."
"... what"
"Oh! And I want my own shirt with my dinosaur I find on it."
"... you ... A dinosaur doctor, you say."
"Yes and I want to find dinosaurs."
"Have you considered ... Wealth? Power? Strength, beauty?"
"No."
"Empire? Mountaintop palaces, grand vistas?"
"I don't want a mounty visty, I want to be a dinosaur doctor."
"And a dinosaur shirt, you say."
"_My_ dinosaur shirt. I want my own dinosaur I found on a shirt."
The spirits can See deep into the folded contortions of the human spirit, the twisting ochre contradictions of a lifetime of justifications, self deceptions and lies, the gnawing tendrils of envy, lust, desperation and greed so common in those who've sought out his kind, and this one is fascinated that there is none of that before him. He has been summoned, somehow, by this uncomplicated form, by these untainted colours, vibrant and whole. Where would he reach into this to set the hook, he wonders, to anchor the final turn of this child's fate?
And then for the first time in as many aeons, he finds himself wondering... why?
The cursed fate of those who seek the lamp's prisoners is its own justification, its own poetry. None who could See those whose wishes would ever think otherwise; the reason is there, sufficient and indisputable before them, corroded, vile and eminently, universally human.
Except, somehow, here and now.
The genie knows with a cosmic certainty that the contortions, the justifications and contradictions will come to this child in time. It cannot be otherwise. But they are not here now; perhaps that balancing will be set before another spirit on another day.
"Very well. You wish to become a Doctor of Dinosaurs? You wish to discover new dinosaurs, and you wish to have a shirt with the dinosaur you have discovered on it?"
"Yes."
"Done."
posted by mhoye at 7:36 AM on August 2, 2023 [3 favorites]
I don't mean to devalue Dr. Manitkoon's lifetime of work, of course, but ...
I think you have good intentions, but this reads to me as extremely infantilizing and dismissive of the hard work it takes to earn a PhD and, past that, to establish one’s self in a discipline. I was honestly repelled, which I extremely doubt was your intent. Sorry if that’s harsh, but it’s a really visceral reaction.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:24 PM on August 2, 2023
I think you have good intentions, but this reads to me as extremely infantilizing and dismissive of the hard work it takes to earn a PhD and, past that, to establish one’s self in a discipline. I was honestly repelled, which I extremely doubt was your intent. Sorry if that’s harsh, but it’s a really visceral reaction.
posted by GenjiandProust at 6:24 PM on August 2, 2023
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posted by GenjiandProust at 3:06 AM on August 1, 2023 [4 favorites]