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Sethapanichsakul et al., Scientific Reports (2026)An artists rendition of Nagatitan Chaiyaphumensis, a massive sauropod that lived 113 million years ago.In 2016, a man named Thanom Luangnan spotted some odd rocks on the shore of a pond in Thailands Chaiyaphum Province. Paleontologists excavated the site and soon realized that Luangnan had discovered the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia.The newly-identified species, dubbed Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, was a long-necked sauropod that roamed Thailand around 113 million years ago. While the dinosaur isnt the largest known sauropod, its size is revealing how prehistoric changes in climate and vegetation set the stage for even more massive beasts to develop.The Discovery Of Nagatitan ChaiyaphumensisAs Sita Manitkoon, a paleontologist at Thailands Mahasarakham University, told National Geographic, the fossilized remains of Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis were discovered by chance when Thanom Luangnan stumbled upon them in 2016.He observed what he described as strange-looking rocks on the banks of a public pond, said Manitkoon. Luangnan reported his find to the Department of Mineral Resources, and paleontologists soon began excavating the site. The initial dig took place between 2016 and 2019, but it was then delayed until 2024 due to a lack of funding. When scientists finally uncovered the last of the fossils, they were stunned by what they saw.Initial measurements of the bones excavated suggested that this could be the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia, Manitkoon said.The colossal prehistoric creature was named after the Naga a legendary giant serpent from Southeast Asian folklore and the Titans of Greek mythology, in addition to the region where its remains were unearthed.While paleontologists didnt find the full skeleton of Nagatitan chaiyaphumensis, they did unearth enough vertebrae, ribs, and hip and limb bones (one of which was nearly six feet long) to estimate that this sauropod was more than 88 feet long and weighed 30 tons three times more than a Tyrannosaurus rex.Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul/University College LondonLead author Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul stands next to a replica of the upper front leg bone of Nagatitan.These findings were recently released in a study published in the journal Scientific Reports. In a statement released by University College London, lead study author Thitiwoot Sethapanichsakul, a Thai doctoral student at the university, explained, We refer to Nagatitan as the last titan of Thailand. That is because it was discovered in Thailands youngest dinosaur-bearing rock formation.Sethapanichsakul continued, Younger rocks laid down towards the end of the time of the dinosaurs are unlikely to contain dinosaur remains because the region by then had become a shallow sea. So this may be the last or most recent large sauropod we will find in Southeast Asia.At the same time, Nagatitan is revealing more about how exactly dinosaurs grew so large during the Cretaceous Period.How Prehistoric Environmental Changes Led To Supersized BeastsAs Sethapanichsakul told NPR, One of the many features that were kind of excited about is the size of this dinosaur It gives us an understanding of the potential kind of evolutionary trends that are beginning to occur.The Nagatitan fossils were found in rocks that dated back 113 million years. At that time, Thailand was closer to the equator and likely covered in open, dry shrublands that were conducive to large sauropods, which could easily travel across the land to eat plants.Savannah-like ecosystems are known to favor the development of megaherbivore faunas, Pedro Mocho, a paleontologist at Portugals Universidade de Lisboa, told National Geographic, and it would not be surprising if environmental factors were related to sauropod gigantism.Mahasarakham University Thailand/FacebookThitiwoot Sethapanichsakul and Sita Manitkoon examine the bones of Nagatitan.Its seemingly counterintuitive that large creatures like Nagatitan could survive in such high temperatures, but their long necks actually provided more surface area through which they could shed heat and cool their bodies. Indeed, even larger sauropods like Patagotitan mayorum developed under similar conditions later in the Cretaceous Period.In the Middle Cretaceous, Sethapanichsakul told NPR, we find dinosaurs in China, South America, and probably Africa that are super giants. They are the biggest of the biggest. And Nagatitan essentially represents that kind of on-ramp towards that kind of supersizing.While this study has obvious scientific significance, it also marks a key milestone in Sethapanichsakuls career. Ive always been a dinosaur kid, he said. This study doesnt just establish a new species but also fulfills a childhood promise of naming a dinosaur.After reading about the discovery of the largest dinosaur ever found in Southeast Asia, learn 31 surprising facts about dinosaurs. Then, step into another moment in Thailands history: the 2018 cave rescue.The post Paleontologists In Thailand Just Revealed The Nagatitan, An 88-Foot Behemoth Thats The Largest Dinosaur Ever Found In Southeast Asia appeared first on All That's Interesting.

In 1909, Danish polar explorer Ejnar Mikkelsen set out on a mission to recover the lost maps and journals of a doomed Arctic expedition to the northeast coast of Greenland. But it would take him three years for him to make it back home.In 1891, explorer Robert E. Peary outlined the eastern coast of Greenland and mapped a channel separating what he believed to be an island he called Peary Land from the mainland, allowing America to make a claim on the island. This led determined Danish sailors on a fatal voyage to dispute that claim in 1907 and Ejnar Mikkelsen on a quest to find them.Wikimedia CommonsEjnar Mikkelsen in 1907, two years before his fateful voyage to Greenland.But in August 1909, Mikkelsens ship would get trapped in Arctic ice some 200 miles from where he believed his predecessors had died. According to his autobiography Two Against the Ice, Mikkelsen began the journey with six men but would be abandoned by all but one novice crewmate and endured two winters in the Arctic.Since adapted into the Netflix movie Against the Ice, the book attempted to convey some semblance of how harrowing the world of exploration in the early 1900s was. From frostbite and scurvy to predatory wildlife, Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen endured terrifying hardship to survive.The Seafaring Youth Of Ejnar MikkelsenBorn on December 23, 1880, in Vester-Brnderslev, Denmark, Ejnar Mikkelsen gravitated to the seas since he was a child. Raised by generations that had risked their lives in treacherous expeditions, he grew up with tales of Arctic adventure and unprecedented discoveries. It soon became a lifelong passion to do the same.Wikimedia CommonsFrom left to right: Ernest de Koven Leffingwell, Ejnar Mikkelsen, G.P. Howe, and Ejnar Ditlevsen in 1906.Mikkelsen was only 14 years old when he set sail for the first time on his own. While invigorating, he would not be satisfied until he became a true sailor. In 1896, he purportedly walked 320 miles from Stockholm to Gothenburg to convince Swedish explorer Salomon August Andre to take him on his Arctic balloon flight.Ejnar Mikkelsen wouldnt know it yet, but he was lucky to be rejected. Andres perilous journey ended fatally in October 1897 when the hydrogen balloon failed to reach the North Pole, and all three of its passengers died. In 1900, however, Mikkelsen was welcomed aboard Sir George Carl Amdrups expedition to eastern Greenland.Mikkelsen and four others, including U.S. geologist Ernest de Koven Leffingwell, ended the 500-mile trip in 1902 by surveying a famously inaccessible coastline for the first time. The following year, he served as the cartographer on Evelyn Baldwins expedition to Franz Josef Land, an Arctic archipelago used only by the Russian military today. In 1906, Leffingwells father sponsored an Arctic expedition to map land that whalers had reportedly spotted in the Beaufort Sea north of Point Barrow, Alaska. With $5,000 and an engine-less schooner, they set out to find it but were forced to stop at Flaxman Island 200 miles from their goal. Ullstein Bild/Getty ImagesEjnar Mikkelsen during the the Anglo-American polar expedition of 1906-1907.Fortuitously befriending the local Inuk Sachawachiak people, they learned how to drive dogs across the ice and set out in February 1907. After traversing 120 miles over 60 days, the duo believed the route fatal and returned only to find their ship had sunk. While Leffingwell stayed behind to study the ice, Mikkelsen had other plans.Taking his chances to make it back home, Mikkelsen trekked all 2,300 miles on sled and by foot. Passing through Point Barrow and Nome, he continued through Fairbanks, Valdez, and the Gulf of Alaska. His return heralded the arrival of a truly seasoned explorer although Ejnar Mikkelsens biggest challenge was yet to come.The Expedition To Recover Lost Maps In GreenlandThe ill-fated Danmark expedition of 1907 saw Ludvig Mylius-Erichsen, Niels Peter Heg-Hagen, and Jrgen Brnlund set out to prove that Greenland was a single unified island that belonged exclusively to Denmark.Wikimedia CommonsEjnar Mikkelsens ship Alabama in the summer of 1909.But in doing so, they relied on Robert E. Pearys maps of northeast Greenland, which included the hypothetical Peary Channel dividing the region in two. Misled by the incomplete maps, even as they sought to disprove them, the men became lost in the Arctic and were soon trapped in the ice. While Brnlunds body was found in 1908 with his maps and diary, Mylius-Erichsen and Heg-Hagens never were. As a Dane and fellow explorer, Ejnar Mikkelsen couldnt decline when British newspaper magnate Lord Northcliffe offered to finance a 1909 expedition to locate them. Patriotic to the core, however, Mikkelsen demanded that the trip be financed with Danish money. His government agreed to fund half the cost and let the public raise the rest. Mikkelsen chose a crew of six men and a 45-ton sloop named Alabama that ran on a 15-horsepower engine. It departed Copenhagen on June 20, 1909.While Lieutenants Vilhelm Laub and C.H. Jrgensen, shipmates Hans P. Olsen and George Poulson, and carpenter Carl Unger were suited for the job, Mikkelsens mechanic turned out to be an incompetent alcoholic. En route to Greenland, the Alabama stopped in Iceland where a young mechanic named Iver Iversen volunteered to replace him.Ullstein Bild/Getty ImagesEjnar Mikkelsen (left) and Iversen (right) were hailed as heroes when they finally returned to Copenhagen in 1912.When they arrived in the Faroe Islands, the expedition suffered a setback. They had planned to board dogs that would allow them to drive across the ice in Greenland, but the animals they had contracted were infected with rabies. While they found replacements on Ammassalik Island, their arrival in Greenland was delayed until late August.At the tail-end of summer, the wooden sloop became trapped in the ice of Shannon Island. On Aug. 27, 1909, Mikkelsen was forced to have his crew establish their quarters on land. Ominously, they were now 200 miles from the Danmarkshavn site where Mylius-Erichsen had reportedly wintered before dying.On Sept. 25, Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen set out while the rest of their crew stayed behind. After finding information that the other crew members had made it some 500 miles farther north, they returned to the Alabama for the winter, determined to set out the following spring. How Ejnar Mikkelsen And Iver Iversen Battled Against The IceAs chronicled in his 1913 book Lost in the Arctic, Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen left the ship once again in March 1910. By May, they had found the diary of Mylius-Erichsen and confirmed that Peary Channel did not exist, however, their struggles had just begun. Arktisk Institut/Public DomainEjnar Mikkelsen in 1912, shortly before he and Iver Iversen were rescued. Summer had arrived, and the ice they had traversed by sled to get to the site was melting fast. It took them eight months to return to the ship. Along the way, theyd resorted to eating their sled dogs to survive and suffered daily hallucinations after the last of their dogs died.When they finally made it back to the Alabama, they found they had been abandoned by their shipmates, who found passage home aboard a sealing vessel.Ejnar Mikkelsen and Iver Iversen would be forced to endure two further winters in Greenland surviving on abandoned rations from previous expeditions and evading predatory wildlife.The explorers used their quarters on Shannon Island as long as they could, but it would prove insufficient for the long winter ahead. So they used timber and planking from Alabama wreckage to construct a small cottage. When it appeared as though all hope was lost, the two men were rescued on July 19, 1912, by Norwegian steamer Sjblimsten.Not dissuaded from adventure, the Danish explorer led an expedition to the Sermersooq municipality in eastern Greenland in 1924. Then, he settled what became one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth, which was henceforth known as Scoresbysund and had no more than 345 residents in 1920.NetflixNikolaj Coster-Waldau (left) as Ejnar Mikkelsen in Two Against the Ice.In 1932, he led a crew of eight on the Second East-Greenland Expedition to clarify the geological area between Cape Dalton and Kangerdlugsuak.And wherever Mikkelsen went, he recounted his harrowing adventures in numerous books, one of which has now become a Netflix film about his winters stranded in Greenland. Called Against the Ice, the film stars Nicolaj Coster-Waldau as Mikkelsen and premieres March 2, 2022.On Ejnar Mikkelsens 90th birthday in 1970, he was given a national tribute by the Danish government. He died mere months later, on May 1, 1971. With a Danish patrol vessel and Greenland mountain range named after him, the explorer had truly become the kind of famed adventurer he dreamed of as a child.After learning about Ejnar Mikkelsen, read about the lost Franklin Expedition that ended in cannibalism. Then, take a look at these incredible 100-year-old Antarctic exploration photos.The post Meet Ejnar Mikkelsen, The Danish Explorer Who Survived Two Brutal Winters Stranded In The Arctic appeared first on All That's Interesting.

Daniel LaPlante was 17 years old in 1987 when he brutally murdered a Townsend, Massachusetts, pregnant woman named Priscilla Gustafson and her two children. Adding to this horror was the shocking incident from the year before of LaPlante terrorizing another family by living within the walls of their home.LaPlante, a notorious local burglar, had carefully initiated a reign of psychological terror throughout Townsend and its surrounding neighborhoods.Then came the Gustafson murders of Dec. 1, 1987, consigning LaPlante to prison for the rest of his life.The Traumatic Early Years Of Daniel LaPlanteBarry Chin/Boston Globe StaffDaniel LaPlante was just 17 when he committed one of the most horrifying murders Massachusetts had ever seen.Daniel LaPlante was born on May 15, 1970, in Townsend, Massachusetts, and he allegedly suffered traumatic sexual and psychological abuse during his childhood at the hands of his father and then as a teen at the hands of his psychiatrist.LaPlantes environment was no less chaotic. His familys house and surrounding grounds were reportedly a mass of junk and old cars. LaPlante attended St. Bernards High School in Fitchburg, where he was described by students and faculty as a loner and not particularly friendly.By the 1980s, a neighbor had grown concerned over LaPlantes many solo excursions into the woods behind his home, according to the Boston Globe. Youd see him walk out there by himself. Thats the only place you would see him, the woods.Diagnosed with hyperactivity disorder by the psychiatrist who allegedly sexually abused him, LaPlante became a neighborhood thief by 15. He broke into Townsend homes during the evenings, stole occupants valuables, and then he graduated to mind games.LaPlante began leaving things behind and moving things around in his neighbors houses to scare them. In 1986, his mind games turned to pure terror when he became obsessed with 15-year-old Tina Bowen.They attended the same school, and LaPlante had taken her on a date over the Easter break. When Bowen returned to school, some students told her that LaPlante was facing rape charges and according to her father, Frank Bowen, that was that. Or so he thought.Becoming The Boy In The WallsSteve Bezanson, Tom LaneA police sketch of Daniel LaPlantes hiding place in the Bowen residence.Over the course of several weeks in late fall 1986, Daniel LaPlante gained entry to the Bowen home at 93 Lawrence Street, in Pepperell, near Townsend. From a small crawl space no wider than six inches, he initiated psychological torment on the family.After watching Tina and her sister try to contact their recently deceased mother on a ouija board, LaPlante began impersonating a ghost. TV channels were changed, items were rearranged, milk mysteriously consumed. He even emptied bottles of alcohol without drinking them and scrawled disturbing messages like marry me and Im in your room. Come and find me, on the walls in mayonnaise and ketchup. A knife was found pinning a family photograph to the wall.Though Frank Bowen believed his daughters were messing with each other, he soon learned the truth was far worse. On Dec. 8, 1986, the girls returned home to find someone had used their toilet. After a search by Frank Bowen, LaPlante was discovered in a wardrobe, face painted, wearing a Native American-style jacket and ninja mask and brandishing a hatchet. LaPlante hustled them into a bedroom before disappearing somewhere in the house. Tina Bowen escaped through a window and contacted police, who found LaPlante two days later in the cellar of the house.Hiding in a triangular space in a corner, bounded on two sides by the concrete foundation and an inner wall, LaPlante had clearly been living there for weeks.Following his arrest at the Bowen home, LaPlante was held in a juvenile facility until October 1987 when his mother remortgaged her house ensuring his $10,000 bail. Two months later, he committed his worst crime yet.The Harrowing Gustafson MurdersNational Organization of Victims of Juvenile MurderersPriscilla Gustafson with her two children, Abigail and William.While awaiting trial, LaPlante moved home and continued his daytime burglary spree. On Oct. 14, 1987, he stole two .22 Caliber firearms from a neighboring house. On Nov. 16, 1987, LaPlante burglarized the home of the Gustafson family, which included pregnant nursery school teacher Priscilla Gustafson, her husband Andrew, and their two children, five-year-old William and seven-year-old Abigail.But this wouldnt be the last time LaPlante broke into their home. On Dec. 1, 1987, LaPlante walked through the woods separating his house from the Gustafsons armed with a .22 firearm. He later claimed he didnt expect Priscilla and her children to come home. What happened next is every familys worst nightmare. According to retired Pepperell Lieutenant Thomas Lane, LaPlante considered jumping out the window and escaping. Instead, he confronted Priscilla with the gun and led her and her son to the bedroom, putting William in the closet and tying Priscilla to the bed using makeshift ligatures and gagging her with one of his socks. After raping Priscilla, Laplante shot her twice in the head. He then took William into the bathroom and drowned him. As he was leaving, he encountered Abigail Gustafson, who had returned home on the school bus. He lured Abigail into another bathroom where he drowned her as well. Then, LaPlante simply returned home and attended his nieces birthday party that evening. A Life Sentence For Daniel LaPlanteYouTubeDaniel LaPlante is still serving his three consecutive life sentences.Meanwhile, Andrew Gustafson had been calling his wife all afternoon. Returning to an eerily quiet house with no lights on, Gustafson feared the worst. He first found his wife dead, lying face down on the bedspread. Then, he fled the house and called police. He later reported that he refused to look for the children because, I was afraid I would find them dead.According to court documents, LaPlante was easily implicated in the scheme using forensic evidence. Police even found the shirt and gloves he wore to drown the children in the woods behind the Gustafson house, still wet.With the scent of the shirt, dogs tracked through the woods to within three to four feet of LaPlantes home. The evening after the Gustafson murders, LaPlante was interrogated. Lacking enough evidence to arrest him there, police planned to return the following day, but LaPlante fled and a massive manhunt ensued. After another burglary spree in Pepperell, LaPlante was found hiding in a dumpster and arrested on the evening of Dec. 3, 1987.Daniel LaPlante went on trial for the Gustafson murders in October 1988 and a jury found him guilty of murder. He was convicted on three life sentences.Chillingly, that wasnt the end to his story. LaPlante appealed for a reduced sentence in 2017, but the judge found that he was not remorseful for his crimes. Instead, the judge affirmed LaPlantes sentence of three consecutive terms of life imprisonment. He will not be up for parole for another 45 years.After learning the horrifying story of Daniel LaPlante, read about how serial killer Richard Ramirez was captured by his teeth. Then, learn about the grisly Keddie Cabin murders.The post The Chilling Case Of Daniel LaPlante, The 17-Year-Old Who Raped And Murdered A Pregnant Mom Then Drowned Her Two Kids appeared first on All That's Interesting.

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