Thailand's 'Jurassic Park' aims to bring in tourists
Paleontologists in northeastern Thailand have discovered significant dinosaur fossils, including the massive Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis. These findings are helping to fill evolutionary gaps and are being leveraged to promote a new dinosaur-themed tourism industry.
Why it matters
These discoveries provide critical data for understanding dinosaur evolution while simultaneously offering economic development opportunities for the local region through tourism.
Thailand's 'Jurassic Park' aims to bring in tourists Paleontologists have uncovered important fossils in northeastern Thailand. The finds will help close evolutionary gaps in Earth's history — and could boost a fledgling dinosaur tourism industry. Sensational skeleton The skeleton of a Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, a herbivorous long-necked sauropod, is now on show at the Thainosaur Museum in Bangkok. At around 27 meters (88 feet) long and weighing 27 tons — as much as nine adult Asian elephants — it's considered the largest dinosaur ever discovered in Southeast Asia.
The fossils of the giant herbivore were found 10 years ago in northeastern Thailand, but first had to be investigated and verified before researchers could clearly identify them. Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis was only officially scientifically recognized in May 2026 after a publication in the journal Scientific Reports.
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