IS this Real? A New Spinosaur discovered from Hell Creek

[Takama]

Ok there is some buzz going around Facebook about a new Spinosaur called Montanspinus.  Now some have claimed it to be a hoax, but one person said that its legit and he saw the paper.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10209835305945174&set=gm.1183595291670796&type=3&theater

Is there any truth for this?   

[suspsy]

Can't find any news reports, and Thomas Holtz hasn't heard about it either.

[stargatedalek]

It's almost certainly a hoax, and if this Hell Creek Spinosaur isn't than at the very least that image is. It's clearly just an edited version of the Ibrahim reconstruction with longer legs and I think the limbs are from Hartmans outdated Spinosaurus skeletal.

However, realistically speaking it isn't completely unreasonable to think Hell Creek could have supported large Spinosaurs. People often forget that it's a coastal formation.

[Yutyrannus]

It was just a joke from the Saurian livestream because people kept asking if Spinosaurus would be in the game.

Hell Creek does indeed happen to be just the kind of environment that a spinosaur could live in, though .

[Takama]

It was just a joke from the Saurian livestream.

Well a Awful lot of people took it seriously.    Someone close this thread then?

[Dinoguy2]

It was just a joke

I don't get it. Maybe my sense of humor but isn't a joke supposed to have like a punch line or something? And be funny in some way? "The building is on fire!" "Really??" "No, just joking, haha get it?"

There's a difference between a joke and a hoax.

Or was it an attempt to show how people believe whatever they read on the web? If so it failed, almost all those comments are skeptical and asking for verification, with one or two people lying about it being true.

[Yutyrannus]

I don't get it. Maybe my sense of humor but isn't a joke supposed to have like a punch line or something? And be funny in some way? "The building is on fire!" "Really??" "No, just joking, haha get it?"

There's a difference between a joke and a hoax.

Watch the most recent livestream, it's in there.

[Dinoguy2]

I don't get it. Maybe my sense of humor but isn't a joke supposed to have like a punch line or something? And be funny in some way? "The building is on fire!" "Really??" "No, just joking, haha get it?"

There's a difference between a joke and a hoax.

Watch the most recent livestream, it's in there.

The developers told people to start a false news story for laughs? Or were they kidding around about HC Spinosaurus and then other people did that because they didn't know what context is or that nobody should be expected to get some inside joke?

[Yutyrannus]

I don't get it. Maybe my sense of humor but isn't a joke supposed to have like a punch line or something? And be funny in some way? "The building is on fire!" "Really??" "No, just joking, haha get it?"

There's a difference between a joke and a hoax.

Watch the most recent livestream, it's in there.

The developers told people to start a false news story for laughs? Or were they kidding around about HC Spinosaurus and then other people did that because they didn't know what context is or that nobody should be expected to get some inside joke?

It's because people kept asking them to put Spinosaurus in the game. It was very obvious they were joking about it, and I can't believe someone actually took it seriously.

[Takama]

Well it did not help much that those who wanted an simple answer kept getting trolled.

I asked If its real. and some one said they saw the paper. I ask for link. and they said it would not come out until December.   And im like "For crying out loud is this thing real or not?"

But then theres someone who claimed that it was known from fragmentary remains (teeth, a Femur, and the top of the spine) 

Someone tried saying that it was under embargo, and one of the Devs on Saurian broke it. So I made a Reference to how Mesozoica did this exact thing with Dakotaraptor. I then suggested that i lost respect for Saurian before they said it was a joke.   

[Yutyrannus]

Well it did not help much that those who wanted an simple answer kept getting trolled.

I asked If its real. and some one said they saw the paper. I ask for link. and they said it would not come out until December.   And im like "For crying out loud is this thing real or not?"

But then theres someone who claimed that it was known from fragmentary remains (teeth, a Femur, and the top of the spine) 

Someone tried saying that it was under embargo, and one of the Devs on Saurian broke it. So I made a Reference to how Mesozoica did this exact thing with Dakotaraptor. I then suggested that i lost respect for Saurian before they said it was a joke.   

That was Joschua Knuppe (http://hyrotrioskjan.deviantart.com/).

[Dinoguy2]

I don't get it. Maybe my sense of humor but isn't a joke supposed to have like a punch line or something? And be funny in some way? "The building is on fire!" "Really??" "No, just joking, haha get it?"

There's a difference between a joke and a hoax.

Watch the most recent livestream, it's in there.

The developers told people to start a false news story for laughs? Or were they kidding around about HC Spinosaurus and then other people did that because they didn't know what context is or that nobody should be expected to get some inside joke?

It's because people kept asking them to put Spinosaurus in the game. It was VERY obvious they were joking about it, and I can't believe someone actually took it seriously.

Why? There's nothing inherently implausible or ridiculous about a Hell Creek spinosaurid.

This is like posting on the boards saying you found a Battat Diplodocus at Target. Unlikely? Yes. Ridiculous? No. Then people ask for photos, you say you didn't buy it and also forgot your camera but will try to post pics if you see one again. Somebody else says they found pics hidden on the Battat web site server. People are curious and asking about it.

Then you say "haha psych! I was joking. Get the joke? The joke was I lied about something and you believed me!"

It's not a joke, because it's only funny to the people pulling off the prank and trying to make other people look foolish for believing them.

And it doesn't even make sense. If it was supposed to be a joke about the fact that people bug the devs about Spinosaurus, it should have been a "We found remains of a Spinosaurus in Hell Creek!" which is obviously impossible so more of a joke, or "We found remains of a new spinosaur and it just so happens to look like the one from JP!" But people made up a fake new species with a plausible name and plausible appearance, and lied about a paper existing. That's the definition of a hoax.

[stargatedalek]

It wasn't the Saurian developers who went that far. When they made the joke it was very obviously sarcastic, but people ran with it and tried to make it into a running joke. Then either someone decided to start tormenting people with it or someone mistook it for real and started spreading it as real.

Of all the formations to find a Spinosaurid in, Hell Creek is probably "among the more likely of the unlikely". It's a coastal formation from a time frame not completely impossibly far apart from the large African and South American Spinosaurids, but there's also no record of any Spinosaurid remains in the western interior seaway at all, despite it making sense as a potential habitat.

Regardless, it is my new goal in life to discover a new iguanidae species and name it "Montanaspinus"

[SBell]

It wasn't the Saurian developers who went that far. When they made the joke it was very obviously sarcastic, but people ran with it and tried to make it into a running joke. Then either someone decided to start tormenting people with it or someone mistook it for real and started spreading it as real.

Of all the formations to find a Spinosaurid in, Hell Creek is probably "among the more likely of the unlikely". It's a coastal formation from a time frame not completely impossibly far apart from the large African and South American Spinosaurids, but there's also no record of any Spinosaurid remains in the western interior seaway at all, despite it making sense as a potential habitat.

Regardless, it is my new goal in life to discover a new iguanidae species and name it "Montanaspinus"

Better, find an innocuous small lizard or fish or something and give it that name.

[jooooo]

The Montanaspinus thing was originally a joke on the Saurian livestream. But me and a couple of friends thought it'd be funny to prank people and pretend it's real. Then comming clean after a set time (a week or something like that). But it got out of hand soon after and we ended up comming clean after 2 hours.

It's fake.

[suspsy]

Well, it's definitely made more than a few paleontologists, researchers, and enthusiasts mad.

http://nmpdn.blogspot.ca/2016/06/just-say-no-to-montanaspinus.html?m=1

[jooooo]

Some others did continue the prank though by making a Wikipedia page, which the others got slacked for due to people thinking they made it.

[Brontozaurus]

People did that? Oh dear.

It was funny when it was the devs joking about all the requests for Spinosaurus to be put into Saurian, but that's taking it too far.