Inside Thailand's Real Life Jurassic Park Complete With Animatronic Dinosaur

Tuesday, April 24, 2018

Phu Wiang national park celebrates all things dinosaur / Liz Dodd

Phu Wiang national park is home to some of the world's oldest and most impressive dinosaur fossils.

A geologist looking for uranium discovered a giant patella bone here in 1976, and the palaeontologists who were called to investigate then unearthed a fossilised 15m-long herbivore. It was later named Phuwiangosaurus sirindhornae, after Princess Sirindhorn. Dinosaur fever followed (explaining the myriad model dinosaurs in Khon Kaen city), more remains were uncovered and Phu Wiang National Park (อุทยานแห่งชาติภูเวียง) was born.

The park covers a strange horseshoe-shaped mountain that has just a single pass to its interior. Wiang Kao, the district inside the mountain, is a fruit-growing area and is a good place to explore by car if you want to look at traditional village life.

PHOTO: TOURISM AUTHORITY OF THAILAND

Phu Wiang National Park (PWNP) is located in Phu Wiang District, Khon Kaen Province, northeastern Thailand. It is best known for its numerous dinosaur bone paleontological sites. The park is one of the world's largest dinosaur graveyards.[2] In 1996, the remains of Siamotyrannus isanensis, a new family of carnivorous thunder lizards, were unearthed in the park.

The Phu Wiang Dinosaur Museum is situated within the park and displays many of the park's finds. The park, measuring 325 square kilometres (125 sq mi) in size, is located approximately 85 kilometres (53 mi) northwest of Khon Kaen. The area is characterized by a central plain and the low hills of the western Phu Phan Mountains.