An artist's rendering of 'Nyasasaurus parringtoni,' either the earliest dinosaur or the closest dinosaur relative yet discovered
Australian mining mogul Clive Palmer wants to establish an island filled with giant, robotic dinosaurs — and that’s not an April Fools’ joke, the AFP reports. Luckily, though, Palmer appears to have moved on from his original dream of cloning a dinosaur and instead has decided to fill his island with giant robotic ones. Perhaps someone finally showed the billionaire Jurassic Park.
Palmer started his giant dinosaur collection last year, putting two animatronic behemoths — a Tyrannosaurus rex called Jeff and an Omeisaurus named Bones — on his Palmer Coolum Resort on the coast north of Brisbane, Australia. However to make his fantasy of a dinosaur park a reality, Palmer is dreaming even bigger, “If you’ve seen Jeff and Bones, well you haven’t seen anything yet.”
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“We’ll have the world’s biggest dinosaur exhibit, with 165 animatronic dinosaurs,” Palmer said. The creatures will soar up to 6 m tall and weigh over a ton and will be able to move their tails and blink. The animals will also be displayed around the resort and are expected to arrive in Australia later this month.
Palmer has certainly proved himself capable of visionary uses of extraordinary sums of money. In February he announced plans to build Titantic II, a replica of the Titanic that will recreate the sail across the Atlantic Ocean — complete with period costumes and a ban on television and Internet access.
Why does he take on these projects? Palmer said recently, “I want to spend the money I’ve got before I die.” Palmer has a lot of money to burn through too. Forbes estimates his worth at $795 million, though he calls himself a billionaire.
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